I have been doing something very disgusting in my pantry. I did it in my pet stores in order to produce better product for my costumers and now I am doing it for the good of wild birds and now my chickens. :-? It is very neat and clean and confined so there is no harm in it. I have been growing meal worms right on the floor under the shelf in my pantry. I had planned on making suet for the wild birds this Winter with meal worms.It would have been so good for them. Well now I have decided if I hand feed my chickens these it would be like free ranging them. They would eat natural things. I sure do feed them lots of good food and that would be one more thing that is good. I now have 2 very nice cultures They are in plastic containers and can not crawl up the sides of the container. They live in oatmeal and eat apples First stage Second stage Third stage Baby one So does anyone grow their own meal worms?
Interesting, I guess chickens are not fussy as they eat anything not bolted down and a worm is fair game. I have never seen meal worm suet at the store where I do get suet. I googled the cakes, expensive little things. I think I will still use the berry and nut suet cakes. Imagine being a meal worm and having to cross a yard with chickens. There would be one nervous worm. Jerry
I don't raise my own Barb but I do buy in dried mealworms for the birds in my garden. They love them and they're a good source of protein during the short, dark days of winter.
I don't breed them but I get live ones from time to time from the place I get a regular order of wild bird food from. I can't handle them without gloves though but the birds go crazy for them.
great work there, Barb. Is that last one a wireworm, though? or do all the mealworms look like that at one point? Wire worms are the click beetles larvae, This is the pest you find in the potatoes in the garden after you pull them and start peeling them and find that brown tunnel going through the potato. GRRR! Where do you get the "start" for the mealworms? do you just buy a batch of mealworms at the pet store?
carolyn keiper, :-D I have never heard of a wire worm. Had to Google it. They look the same but the beetles don't. Mine are all true meal worms. I was the pet store, I got the original batch from my old supplier. That was last year. I'll bet mine would like potatoes. It would be another nutrition for the birds to receive. Kiasmum, How do you serve them to the wild birds. Chickadees will take them right out your hand if you didn't wear gloves and you had patience. I feed the wild birds out of a pie plate right on the ground. It all started with the blue birds. They love them while raising young. Jokingly, that was part of our employees test. They had to be able to count meal worms and crickets into plastic bags without loosing them, or at least they had to be willing. We used to sell 20,000 crickets each week. You couldn't be a woosie. Jerry Sullivan, My chickens act like they are going to eat my hand off when I take the plastic bag out there with their cake in it. They go crazy. Yes eileen, Protein is why I started this. I have given them left over hamburger, breakfast sausage, beacon chips, salmon and spam right out of the can. It all gets mixed into their corn muffin mix. BTW carolyn keiper, I supplied the little tiny meal worms to people who had baby reptiles. That's really why I grew them at the beginning. I did all the other kind of works too. Wax worms, butter worms, mega worms, and even crickets. Just so the little creatures could have small food. What a business that was....
That I can believe. We had a lizard for a little while. I was buying crickets all the time. and it wasn't cheap especially if I had no other errands to run that direction and the little lizzy needed to eat. I wasn't raising cricket, though!
