Mealworms - How to Keep and Breed Them for Your Chickens

If you keep chickens and would like to give them a real treat without having to spend a fortune, you could always start breeding and raising your own mealworms (tenebrio molitor) which all chickens go mad for. The best part of raising mealworms is that it's so incredibly easy to keep and raise them once their environment has been set up. Keeping mealworms is pretty maintenance free and will cost you virtually nothing apart from a few vegetables and kitchen scraps.

A handful of mealworms a day will keep your chickens happy and provide them with a ton of protein which is a brilliant way of keeping their immune systems nice and strong which in turn helps your birds ward off any illnesses and diseases.

What You Will Need

The first thing you need to do is set up a secure environment for your mealworms which has to be one they can't get out of. The best type of container is an old 10 gallon fish tank which allows you to keep an eye on the condition of the substrate and if it needs changing. Glass or plastic fish tanks are both okay but the key is to have more area than depth to your tank.

You should never cover the tank either because you need to keep as much airflow going through the environment as possible. However, placing a wire cover over the top is always a good idea to prevent anything from getting into the tank or out of the aquarium.

Setting up the Aquarium

You need to add wheat bran into the aquarium to a depth of around 3 inches and spread it evenly on the bottom of it. You can also use chicken feed like layers mash but you need to make sure it doesn't contain any diatomaceous earth (DE). It's also a good idea to freeze any grains before placing them in the tank which should kill off any unwanted bugs that are sometimes found in it.

Adding some live mealworms

The next stage is to add some live mealworms into the fish tank which you can source online. The more you put in the fish tank the better and the quicker the colony will establish itself. A 10 gallon fish tank can easily hold around 1000 mealworms.

Adding the all-important vegetables

You can use all sorts of vegetables which includes the following:

• Potatoes
• Apples and apple peal
• Fruit
• Vegetable scraps from the kitchen

You can feed your mealworms as often as you like and the more often they are fed, the more they will breed and multiply. However, the one thing you have to avoid is allowing any moisture into the fish tank because the wheat bran has to remain dry at all times.

One of the main reasons why a colony of mealworms might die is due to the fact there is too much moisture in their environment which can trigger fungus growth and mite infestations. As such you should never add too many vegetables that boast a high water content and the more varied the veggies are the better. If you notice any food that the mealworms won't eat, you should remove it as soon as you can so that it doesn't get a chance to rot down and then avoid feeding that particular vegetable to your mealworms again.

Where to keep the aquarium

It's really important to keep the fish tank out of direct sunlight but somewhere that's warm and dry. The warmer it is, the faster the mealworm will grow. The one thing to avoid is keeping them in an environment that's too cold because this will hamper their development and if mealworms get too chilly, the colony will eventually die.

Topping up the wheat bran

As soon as you notice the wheat bran is looking a bit thin on the bottom of the fish tank all you have to do is add more to the environment by simply pouring it over everything that's already in there. However, you should only need to do this a few times a year at the very most. The only thing that needs to be cleaned out regularly is any old vegetables that may build up, the wheat bran, however, does not need to be touched or disturbed.

You would need to wait for around 2 months before you could start feeding your chickens the mealworms and then you should only feed them the larvae. The beetles and pupae need to be left so they continue to breed and therefore should not be taken out of the environment.

Collecting the worms

The best time to collect up any mealworms is when you feed them which can easily be done by placing a bit of potato face down in the environment and then waiting for around 10 or so minutes, the larvae will bite into it so all you have to do is lift the potato out and shake the larvae off into a container.

Storing mealworms

If you find you ever have too many mealworms they can be stored in containers filled with fresh wheat bran and then placed somewhere nice and cool so you can feed them to your chickens at a later date. When handling mealworms, you should wear gloves although mealworms are harmless, some people people can become allergic to them which means it's always a good idea to wear a mask when tending to their environment.