[Celtic Eagle]

Our chooks love a treat of mealworms and with spring coming up the wild birds will need food for little one.  So the question is how do you breed mealworms? Anybody got any ideas?

[lucylou]

hi celtic eagle. im in the process (and it is a very long one!)of trying this out.  it seems easy enough but  is taking aaagggeeesss! i got the instructions off the internet and it is pretty straight forward, basically you use a couple of dozen mealworms in large container with a thick layer of porridge oats or bran.  put a couple of pieces of cut up potato onto a dish and change for fresh pieces every few days to keep moisture in the container.  After about 3 weeks they change into pale grubby looking things at the rate of about 1 or 2 a day and you have to carefully pick them out and put them into another container until they all hatch out into cream coloured beetles (takes about 3 weeks also) the beetles turn darker as they mature until they are black, they should be put into a large container similarly set up as what you strarted with , oats and potato etc. then you wait, they start to mate and apparently lay loads of eggs - this is the stage i am at, they have been mating and i think laying eggs for about 6/8 weeks now!! none of the beetles has died off yet and there is no evidence of any baby mealworms growing either! i beleive this stage can take 3 months and the oats that they have been hopefully laying eggs in should be removed into a separate container evry now and then so that the beetles do not eat the eggs or emerging baby mealworms. replenish the oats with fresh so beetles continue to lay eggs.
good luck!

[Elcie]

eeurrgh!  I have enough trouble touching the dry ones for the hens lol!

[8doubles]

I started off two colonies last summer one in oatmeal and the other in layers mash. The layers mash grew a fine coat of mould and the grubs died but the oatmeal batch is still going with tiny mealworms present.
The temperature in the shed is the main problem this time of year as all insects go dormant and will probably not get going again till april/may.

Mealworms do not need a lot of care as i found out after forgetting about a tub of muesli i put some in . There were mealworms at all stages of development 18 months later when i found them again.