I purchase 10,000 - 20,000 mealworms at a time. Being a wildlife rehabilitator, I have to have them on had for songbirds and waterfowl and I also treat my birds.
I have tried several times to raise them but it's too cold where I am. I get to the bug stage but they never lay any eggs. I'm pretty sure it needs to be at least 80 degrees (or higher) for egg development.
It's not difficult to raise them. I put them on a bed of wheat germ, oatmeal and a bit of corn meal. For moisture (and food) slice up potatoes and/or apples and lay them on top of the worms. I can't remember how long it takes before they get to the larval stage but after that, they turn into black beetles (they don't fly) and it's the beetles that lay the eggs starting a new crop.
There's a bit more to this but not much. If you Google this you'll get some decent info. Like everything else, everyone does things a bit differently but the result should be the same.
Mealworms can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 months, they get lethargic and appear dead but as soon as you warm them up, they get squiggly again and start eating. When I get crickets, it's hard to feed them live to wild birds so I put them in the fridge where they expire. They will store in the fridge dead for about 10 days to two weeks before getting to the 'green eggs and ham' stage ;)
I purchase my mealworms and crickets online at Grubco, I believe they're in Ohio.
Oh and p.s....mealworms don't travel well in hot weather and will arrive mostly dead. However in the winter, I order when it's 20 below and they arrive fine and dandy.
Sue
Wildlife Rescue
--- In CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com, "zilla963" <zilla963@...> wrote:
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> No personal experience but i did see on Craigslist the other day someone said they were "experimenting" to see if they could breed meal worms... and it seems he succeeded quite easily and now had (in his estimation) 10,000 that he had to get rid of and was selling....
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> now this makes me wonder if I shouldnt look into it ...
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CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
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