Mealworm Farms for Pets

Live mealworms are an incredibly nutritious and enriching treat for many pets! I feed them to my rats, quail, and toad. You can gut load the mealworms for the nutrients you'd like your pet to receive. As you begin your mealworm farm, it's important to note that there are 4 steps in the life cycle of mealworms. Egg, mealworm, larvae, beetle. The beetles will eat the larvae, but the mealworms will not eat the larvae if there's another food source. All the life cycle phases must be separated to ensure survival.

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Setting up

Start with 100 mealworms from the pet store and get a three drawer organizer. You can use wheat bran or oats as the bedding. Place about an inch of wheat bran in each container. Label one container something similar to "Beetles/Larvae", one "Eggs/Babies" and "Mealworms". You can put them in whatever order makes sense to you. I did Beetles/Larvae on top, Eggs/Babies in middle, and mealworms on bottom. The order does not matter, only keeping them separated in a timely manner does.

Place your mealworms into your Mealworm bin, then add a few inches of a carrot or fresh edible food.

Feed carrots or other safe veggies/fruits as the food a few times a week, as their source of moisture and nutrients. They can also eat sweet potato, celery, apple, zucchini. Carrots last the longest since they don't dry or mold as quickly as the other foods. Don't feed foods you would't eat, like spoiled or moldy foods.

In the Beetles bin, you'll want to ensure the larvae don't get eaten by the beetles. I use a small plastic to-go sauce cup like they would add a side of ketchup for, without the lid. In this cup, I added a piece of cardboard just long enough for a beetle to crawl out of the cup once they develop, while ensuring beetles cannot crawl into the cup from the outside. I find that egg carton or toilet paper cardboard has the best grip for their newly developed legs. Setup your cardboard so that they can crawl out of the cup and drop into the rest of the beetles, while ensuring the older beetles cannot crawl into the cup.

I find that beetles like to hide and burrow. So to keep them happy, you can add a piece of toilet paper roll, only about a 3 inch by 3 inch section of a wall, not the whole circle, careful it's not too tall because they will crawl out and into your home. The little arch provides them cover and a dark place to mate and lay eggs. I usually add an extra half inch of bedding for these guys too.

Products:

• Sterilite 3 Drawer Organizer, Amazon

• Nutriworm 5 lb Wheat Bran, Amazon

Maintaining Your Farm

Every couple days, you'll want to:

• Remove the larvae from the mealworm bin into the little cup in the beetles section

  • They're usually on the top of the bedding, and are white with no legs

• Help any new beetles out of the little cup if they haven't figured out your contraption. Some are stupid and will just enjoy eating all the helpless larvae.

• Remove old dried food and replace with fresh

• Keep farm at room temp out of direct sunlight

  
  

Weekly:

• Sift for eggs out of the beetle bin (larger sifter), place eggs (not usually visible) and any bedding that comes through the large sifter into the eggs bin

• Vacuum from about an inch above the 2 mealworm bins the shedded exoskeletons (castings). If you place the vaccum too low, you'll suck up the bedding.

  • If you have isopods or a garden, apply these castings to it for nutrients!

• Sift for large mealworms out of the eggs bin, place in the mealworm bin

• Remove as many mealworms as you need for your pets

  • careful not to over-cull: you wont have a steady amount of eggs to replace what you feed

  • careful not to under-cull: you'll have more mealworms than you know what to do with one day

  • This part takes some experimenting with your pet needs!

• Remove mealworm poop (called frass) from the mealworm bin. Apply it as a fertilizer to your plants or give it away to those with plants as a gift! It's a great natural fertilizer.

  • Mealworm poop is very dusty and some people are allergic to it. It's advised to wear a mask

  • Use the thinner sifter linked below for removing frass

Every couple months :

• Remove accumulated frass from the baby mealworm bin with fine hole sifter

Yearly (or so):

• Get new stock to introduce genetic diversity and ensure large healthy mealworms

  • can either outcross to your current mealworms or completely replace

Products:

• Larger Hole Stackable Sifter, Amazon

• Finer Hole Stackable Sifter, Amazon

• JONYJ Handheld Vaccum, Amazon