Have you ever considered eating mealworms? probably not. Before you give up on the idea, consider the circumstances that you might find yourself in if there was no other food option, or limited quantities of food. Mealworms are very easy to care for and can provide a sustainable flow of protein rich food for a variety of livestock animals and even for people, if things are dire enough.
Chickens absolutely love fresh and dried mealworms. Having the ability to be able to provide a high protein snack in winter with minimal effort is a great way to supplement their diet. There are many ways to set up a mealworm farm but the basic principles are the same. Mealworms need a bed of food to eat and burrow into for different growth stages.
This food can be a variety of things but even a bag of crumbled chicken feed will work very well. Mealworms are easier to maintain if they are in a plastic container with sides they cannot climb. Stackable bins with drawers are cheap and work very well since there are many chambers to separate them into groups. I find that about and inch to two inches of substrate works very well for them. The beetles (called dark beetles) prefer to be in darker areas as their name suggests.
I put an old throw blanket over the containers to help with this. These guys also will do best between 65 degrees F. and 85 degrees F. , although they can tolerate temperatures outside that range.
Staring a new farm is relatively straightforward, buy some worms and drop them in the substrate. I put a napkin in the bin to put vegetable scraps once a week or so that way the have the food with extra moisture. Putting a small piece of plastic with a cut up sponge also helps them get water, especially when its hot.
After a couple months you will see them start the process of becoming beetles. Once there are beetles they will begin mating and in a few weeks you will start to see very small worms in the substrate. Before long you will have a lot of beetles and can simply feed these directly to your livestock to keep the numbers down or transfer to start new colonies.
The easiest way to separate the worms for harvesting is to have a few five gallon buckets with “sifters‘ that sit in place of the lids. Using a couple different sizes will allow the feed to pass through while holding the beetles and larger worms.
Remember what I said about eating mealworms? Now personally, I would rather not. If things are bad enough though, I’m sure i would make an exception. The benefit is they can be dried and stored or cooked fresh into different foods. Even if you don’t see yourself eating them, they are a tremendously beneficial thing for livestock.
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