Raising Meal Worms for the Laying Flock (part 3)
Ahh, your intrepid larvae farmer has returned with an update on raising meal worms. We have achieved beetles! As I explained in greater depth in part 1 and part 2, I purchased 250 meal worms. After two weeks they began to pupate. Another 10 days passed and from the pupae emerged beetles.
Here is a photo record of the process of change:
Meal worms (larval stage)
Pupae: they appear dormant, no clue to the changes going on inside!
Still pupa, but changes are becoming noticeable. The legs become clearly outlined and the whole pupa is darker in color.
Suddenly this beautiful beetle emerges. It only maintains this shimmery silver color for about an hour.
The beetles turn orange then brown over the next day or two. Finally they become black. These are called Darkling Beetles.
In the beetle container you use the same food/bedding source as with the meal worms—chicken mash in my case—along with a water source in the form of a potato or apple slice, carrot, or leafy green. I also gave them a folded piece of heavy dark paper. They love to hide in it and will lay their eggs on it. I tried a toilet paper roll, too, for the same reason.
Soon after the beetle turns black it begins mating and laying eggs. Within a week these eggs should hatch out very tiny new meal worms and our cycle is complete!
_______________________
Julie Helms is unperturbed by her family who say helpful things like, “you want to raise WHAT in the house??” Anything for her beloved chickens! She blogs about living with sheep, chickens and goats at WoolyAcres.
All photos were taken by the author.
2 Responses to “Raising Meal Worms for the Laying Flock (part 3)”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
So, at what level of development do you feed them to the chickens?
The goal is to feed the chickens the meal worms themselves. Problem is the chickens could have gone through my original supply of 250 in about an hour. So I need thousands! That’ll be another few weeks though.