I cannot find HALIBU77 video. I think it is now off line. Do you know how i can find it? I like filter system video, but still need more info. I have been raising mealworms for the past year, and picking all stages out by hand is soooo time consuming. I want to try your ideas. So to be clear, the filter system allows you to skip sorting out dead beatles, right? do you wait til beeltes are all dead, then toss out? do you still hand pluck pupae? i really need to make this less intense
@loridodds1 I don't worry about picking out the dead beatles too often they get moved to the shallowest corner and once in a while i brush them into a pile then take them all out. I found that the worms like to find a corner to pupate in so a while back i started putting in paper tubes very loosely packed with crumpled newspaper and placed them into the corners. The worms that are ready to pupate crawl into the holes and pupate.
I don't even have to move them the news beatles find there own way out. I never have to pick out the live beatles with this system. The eggs and the smaller pieces of food fall into the drawer below. I do have to keep adding new food to the top drawer. I soon found that with beatles in the drawer i don't have to grind up the food like i did for this video. The beatles break everything down just fine. The oats do take too long without some help though. So i rarely use them now.
I have also used egg carton. You use the bottom half of the egg carton and divide it in half so you have two equal sized squares. You will place one inside the other. Place something in the bottom one to allow a 1/4 inch or so of space between them. The worms ready to pupate will crawl inside there. If you want to separate them from the rest of the farm all you have to do is take the egg cartons out. I just leave them in the farm.
Your right HALIBU77 is gone. He had a lot of video's too.
You don't really have to pick out the pupae like you do with super worms. The meal-worm beatles wont bother the pupae unless they are short on water. So if you keep a good water source in your farm all the time the pupa will be fine.
I should admit that this separation method is not 100% effective. There is always a percentage that doesn't fall through. Its enough that i always have enough new beatles in the drawer to keep the population going.
I have used this system for 2 years and like how it works but recently I had to put the beetles into a regular tub. The beetles seem to chew on the plastic the inside of the drawer became so rough that the beetles were able to climb out. I am able to apply packing tape to the inside walls of the drawer to keep the beetles inside but it kept pealing off. So i have to ether make a new drawer of use a tub. For now its the tub until a new drawer gets made. I believe i will make a new drawer.
When the pupa hatch how long after do the beetles begin to eat I finally got three beettles but they don't eat or move r they fin to die it's been 5 days they still reddish brown though
The beetles begin eating fairly soon, its just hard to see. It does take a while, at first their shells are a little soft and they are weak from the long pupation process. They have to build up their strength. The color change and moving about and eating goes a lot faster if the beetles are warm. Room temperature or high 70's F. It generally takes a week to 10 days before the beetles become black. They need to be about 14 days old before they start laying eggs.
It was very dry in the house so i tried adding extra moisture in the drawer by adding a slightly damp sponge. The foil kept the feed from getting damp. I left the sponge in the drawer, dripping a little water on it while the worms grew and they ended up eating it. At first i didn't notice the little tunnels they made. The worms ended up hollowing out the sponge. Then unnoticed they pupated inside and i had to rip it apart to get all the trapped beetles out.
@R0WMaC Well i have never ate the mealworms myself but i hear that people can. I feed them to the wild birds. I did watch a special on TV a long while back on how to grow mealworms and one of the growers ate some live ones for the camera. He immediately looked revolted and spit them out.
It's standard metal window screen. It has to metal they can eat through the cloth screen. If you drip any glue onto the screen out in the middle don't wipe it off. The screen looses its temper where the hot glue hits and it becomes soft enough for the beetles to chew through.
I have found that the meal worms don't all hatch or mature at the same rate. I can completely feed out all the large worms in a drawer only to find tiny little ones still growing in the feed. At first it was a little frustrating but now i just reuse the good part of the feed with the little worms in it in the next drawer i put under the beetles. Those tiny worms seem to grow up fine with the next batch.
I haven't had a problem with the worms escaping. I do take a few precautions. There has to be at least and inch or more free space above the feed. Also the plastic needs to be slippery. Rough plastic lets them get a good grip so they can climb out. If you have rough plastic you can use the 2 inch clear plastic tape used for shipping boxes. Tape around the inside top edges so that there is a wide slick barrier between the top of the feed and freedom.
but if the top container has mesh in and you pull the middle container out for whatever reason then some eggs from the top drawer might fall into the bottom drawer? what would that mean in terms of the cycle would it mess things up, would they get eaten etc.....
The second drawer allows me to skip the part where i have to take the beetles out of the drawer. I have been using the setup for around 10 months now and still haven't had to fish the beetles out.
I heat the drawer because it gets too cold inside the house for the beetles to grow as fast as i need them too in the winter. Its -5F outside right now and 67F in the house. 67 is not warm enough for the worms.
Nice idea ..but what i don't get is why u use the second draw for the egg? The beetle lay the egg on the bedding so there is not use for the second drawer. Plus Why would you need to heat the drawer anyway??! LOL!
I use a mix of stuff I posted the basic recipe 8 months back. So if you scroll down you will find it. I ran everything through a blender. Mostly for even mixing. Just try to have some grain from each category wheat, oats, and corn. It doesn't have to be the good stuff. Wheat bran works for wheat and old past date cereals. Dried bread heals blended up works great. Be sure to add the fish/cat food for the protein and the dry milk or egg shells for calcium.
That would work except for the fact that i haven't got the space for that many drawers. When i did the drawers i needed 8 of them to raise the worms to feeding stage. With the drawers under the beetles for two weeks at a time. It averaged 16 weeks for the worms to get big enough to feed out, so that would add up to a lot of drawers.
Nice work! I'm not an experienced mealworm grower yet but it seems if you wanted trays with like sized larvae then you would only leave a grow-out tray under the beetle tray for a day or two and maybe give the beetle tray a shake daily to sift out that day's egg laying into the tray. I think that would keep them pretty much the same size???
But i never had a drop in the number of worms getting large enough to feed out. I have now (June 2010) fed out over 25 thousand meal worms to the birds. I started feeding the last week of Feb. just a few worms a day. Currently i feed around 300 worms a day to the birds. I am keeping 300 beetles in that drawer so while i seem to have a heavy percentage lost to beetles eating there own eggs i still have all the meal worms i could want.
I should do a little background i bought my first meal worms Nov. 17 09. I have only bought two 50 meal worm tubs. The second tub was bought in Feb 1 2010 when the beetles from the first batch started dieing off. I saved some worms from the first beetles but they weren't large enough to pupate at that time. The purchased worms didn't git big enough to pupate until the end of Feb. So i had a month when i had no beetles laying eggs.
I no longer use a lot of small drawers. I found that the meal worms would mature at different rates in a drawer. I would change the drawer every couple weeks and still find tiny worms even after i had worms large enough to pupate. And all the worms were within two week in age.
So for convenience sake i bought a large shallow plastic bin and dumped all the drawers into it. I only use the top unit that had the beetles in it. With the beetles on top and the middle drawer for the babies.
I have been using this system for a few months now and like it very much. I have made a few changes. First i got rid of most of the egg crate in the beetle drawer. They would move them around and sometimes the egg crate would move to the sides and the beetles could get out.
Thank you for the kudos's, fosteem1 i love how this works.
I feed the worms to the birds and have been buying large batches online. I saved out what i thought was a hundred worms from the last batch. Turned out to be a couple hundred worms. So i have a LOT of beetles right now.
I cannot find HALIBU77 video. I think it is now off line. Do you know how i can find it? I like filter system video, but still need more info. I have been raising mealworms for the past year, and picking all stages out by hand is soooo time consuming. I want to try your ideas. So to be clear, the filter system allows you to skip sorting out dead beatles, right? do you wait til beeltes are all dead, then toss out? do you still hand pluck pupae? i really need to make this less intense
loridodds1 6 days ago
@loridodds1 I don't worry about picking out the dead beatles too often they get moved to the shallowest corner and once in a while i brush them into a pile then take them all out. I found that the worms like to find a corner to pupate in so a while back i started putting in paper tubes very loosely packed with crumpled newspaper and placed them into the corners. The worms that are ready to pupate crawl into the holes and pupate.
eve2831 3 days ago
I don't even have to move them the news beatles find there own way out. I never have to pick out the live beatles with this system. The eggs and the smaller pieces of food fall into the drawer below. I do have to keep adding new food to the top drawer. I soon found that with beatles in the drawer i don't have to grind up the food like i did for this video. The beatles break everything down just fine. The oats do take too long without some help though. So i rarely use them now.
eve2831 3 days ago
I have also used egg carton. You use the bottom half of the egg carton and divide it in half so you have two equal sized squares. You will place one inside the other. Place something in the bottom one to allow a 1/4 inch or so of space between them. The worms ready to pupate will crawl inside there. If you want to separate them from the rest of the farm all you have to do is take the egg cartons out. I just leave them in the farm.
eve2831 3 days ago
@loridodds1
Your right HALIBU77 is gone. He had a lot of video's too.
You don't really have to pick out the pupae like you do with super worms. The meal-worm beatles wont bother the pupae unless they are short on water. So if you keep a good water source in your farm all the time the pupa will be fine.
eve2831 3 days ago
I should admit that this separation method is not 100% effective. There is always a percentage that doesn't fall through. Its enough that i always have enough new beatles in the drawer to keep the population going.
eve2831 3 days ago
I have used this system for 2 years and like how it works but recently I had to put the beetles into a regular tub. The beetles seem to chew on the plastic the inside of the drawer became so rough that the beetles were able to climb out. I am able to apply packing tape to the inside walls of the drawer to keep the beetles inside but it kept pealing off. So i have to ether make a new drawer of use a tub. For now its the tub until a new drawer gets made. I believe i will make a new drawer.
eve2831 3 weeks ago
When the pupa hatch how long after do the beetles begin to eat I finally got three beettles but they don't eat or move r they fin to die it's been 5 days they still reddish brown though
TaliaVishnu 3 weeks ago
@TaliaVishnu
The beetles begin eating fairly soon, its just hard to see. It does take a while, at first their shells are a little soft and they are weak from the long pupation process. They have to build up their strength. The color change and moving about and eating goes a lot faster if the beetles are warm. Room temperature or high 70's F. It generally takes a week to 10 days before the beetles become black. They need to be about 14 days old before they start laying eggs.
eve2831 3 weeks ago
@camgonecrazy
It was very dry in the house so i tried adding extra moisture in the drawer by adding a slightly damp sponge. The foil kept the feed from getting damp. I left the sponge in the drawer, dripping a little water on it while the worms grew and they ended up eating it. At first i didn't notice the little tunnels they made. The worms ended up hollowing out the sponge. Then unnoticed they pupated inside and i had to rip it apart to get all the trapped beetles out.
eve2831 1 month ago
I want to eat mealworms, is this a safe way?
R0WMaC 1 month ago
@R0WMaC Well i have never ate the mealworms myself but i hear that people can. I feed them to the wild birds. I did watch a special on TV a long while back on how to grow mealworms and one of the growers ate some live ones for the camera. He immediately looked revolted and spit them out.
So good luck with that.
eve2831 1 month ago
@R0WMaC
I found the video i mentioned its here on YouTube its called
Dirty Jobs Season 7 Episode 16 - Chicken Busters PART 4
It has nothing to do with chickens in this segment.
eve2831 1 month ago
@eve2831 thank you :D!
R0WMaC 1 month ago
Walmart
eve2831 6 months ago
Where did you buy the rack?
MrTerrariumGuy 7 months ago
The screen is metal window screen i bought mine at Home Depot.
eve2831 7 months ago
where do you find the mesh screens?
hermitboy15138 7 months ago
where can i get the mesh and what size?
tavermac 10 months ago
@tavermac
It's standard metal window screen. It has to metal they can eat through the cloth screen. If you drip any glue onto the screen out in the middle don't wipe it off. The screen looses its temper where the hot glue hits and it becomes soft enough for the beetles to chew through.
eve2831 10 months ago
I have found that the meal worms don't all hatch or mature at the same rate. I can completely feed out all the large worms in a drawer only to find tiny little ones still growing in the feed. At first it was a little frustrating but now i just reuse the good part of the feed with the little worms in it in the next drawer i put under the beetles. Those tiny worms seem to grow up fine with the next batch.
eve2831 1 year ago
heres a good question for ya...
how do you stop the mealworms from crawling out of plastic tubs? it happens when they mature into that yelloweeeeeeeee colour.
cradleof11 10 months ago
@cradleof11
I haven't had a problem with the worms escaping. I do take a few precautions. There has to be at least and inch or more free space above the feed. Also the plastic needs to be slippery. Rough plastic lets them get a good grip so they can climb out. If you have rough plastic you can use the 2 inch clear plastic tape used for shipping boxes. Tape around the inside top edges so that there is a wide slick barrier between the top of the feed and freedom.
eve2831 10 months ago
but if the top container has mesh in and you pull the middle container out for whatever reason then some eggs from the top drawer might fall into the bottom drawer? what would that mean in terms of the cycle would it mess things up, would they get eaten etc.....
FkinTune 1 year ago
The second drawer allows me to skip the part where i have to take the beetles out of the drawer. I have been using the setup for around 10 months now and still haven't had to fish the beetles out.
I heat the drawer because it gets too cold inside the house for the beetles to grow as fast as i need them too in the winter. Its -5F outside right now and 67F in the house. 67 is not warm enough for the worms.
eve2831 1 year ago
Nice idea ..but what i don't get is why u use the second draw for the egg? The beetle lay the egg on the bedding so there is not use for the second drawer. Plus Why would you need to heat the drawer anyway??! LOL!
asiandude666 1 year ago
I use a mix of stuff I posted the basic recipe 8 months back. So if you scroll down you will find it. I ran everything through a blender. Mostly for even mixing. Just try to have some grain from each category wheat, oats, and corn. It doesn't have to be the good stuff. Wheat bran works for wheat and old past date cereals. Dried bread heals blended up works great. Be sure to add the fish/cat food for the protein and the dry milk or egg shells for calcium.
eve2831 1 year ago
hey i have a big question please answer. How did you make the feed and what is it made out of?
helpingtipsforyou 1 year ago
That would work except for the fact that i haven't got the space for that many drawers. When i did the drawers i needed 8 of them to raise the worms to feeding stage. With the drawers under the beetles for two weeks at a time. It averaged 16 weeks for the worms to get big enough to feed out, so that would add up to a lot of drawers.
eve2831 1 year ago
Nice work! I'm not an experienced mealworm grower yet but it seems if you wanted trays with like sized larvae then you would only leave a grow-out tray under the beetle tray for a day or two and maybe give the beetle tray a shake daily to sift out that day's egg laying into the tray. I think that would keep them pretty much the same size???
arkiegold 1 year ago
Please read 4th paragraph first then read up.
But i never had a drop in the number of worms getting large enough to feed out. I have now (June 2010) fed out over 25 thousand meal worms to the birds. I started feeding the last week of Feb. just a few worms a day. Currently i feed around 300 worms a day to the birds. I am keeping 300 beetles in that drawer so while i seem to have a heavy percentage lost to beetles eating there own eggs i still have all the meal worms i could want.
eve2831 1 year ago
I should do a little background i bought my first meal worms Nov. 17 09. I have only bought two 50 meal worm tubs. The second tub was bought in Feb 1 2010 when the beetles from the first batch started dieing off. I saved some worms from the first beetles but they weren't large enough to pupate at that time. The purchased worms didn't git big enough to pupate until the end of Feb. So i had a month when i had no beetles laying eggs.
eve2831 1 year ago
I no longer use a lot of small drawers. I found that the meal worms would mature at different rates in a drawer. I would change the drawer every couple weeks and still find tiny worms even after i had worms large enough to pupate. And all the worms were within two week in age.
So for convenience sake i bought a large shallow plastic bin and dumped all the drawers into it. I only use the top unit that had the beetles in it. With the beetles on top and the middle drawer for the babies.
eve2831 1 year ago
I have been using this system for a few months now and like it very much. I have made a few changes. First i got rid of most of the egg crate in the beetle drawer. They would move them around and sometimes the egg crate would move to the sides and the beetles could get out.
eve2831 1 year ago
Hmm nice Idea, I'll have to give this a try
HordeFTL 1 year ago
What kind of substrate do you use? Also what kind of screen do you use?
TreLytle 2 years ago
I use rolled oats in the beetle drawer.
Basic mix for the fine substrate.
1 part wheat; Bran, low sugar cereal, dried bread etc.
1 part rolled oats.
1 part corn meal
for calcium i add ether 1 part dry milk or 1/8th part powdered egg shell.
For protein and extra vitamins i add ether 1 part cheap bulk pond fish food or cat food. I find dog food too greasy to work in the mix well.
Other things i have addin small amounts: flour, wheat germ, brewers yeast (up to 1/8 part).
eve2831 2 years ago
The screen is metal window screen. The beetles will eat through cloth screen.
eve2831 2 years ago
Thank you for the kudos's, fosteem1 i love how this works.
I feed the worms to the birds and have been buying large batches online. I saved out what i thought was a hundred worms from the last batch. Turned out to be a couple hundred worms. So i have a LOT of beetles right now.
eve2831 2 years ago
Great idea, i think i will add the feed into the beetle drawer too.
I don't think i have as many worms as you do. You must have a lot more beetles. I bought a little tub of 50.
fosteem1 2 years ago