Traveling worms...again!

The worms have gone with us to Florida again! We left home on April 5th and I brought one set of six drawers with us. I have two sets of drawers in use, but decided that the "younger" ones would be fine without any maintenance for two weeks. I gave the biggest worms to my neighbor to feed to her wild birds, combined my next two drawers into one, and brought my original six drawers with us in the motorhome. I have beetles in one drawer and pupae in another, with worms in the other four.

I brought what I thought was enough wheat bran to last me, but I've had to clean the worms every couple of days, and won't have enough. There's a Tractor Supply here, but I really don't want to have to find space for a 25-pound bag of wheat bran, so I decided to buy a large box of oatmeal to feed the largest worms with. When there were mostly out of food, they were munching on the larvae (mealworms will eat almost anything!), so I had to give them something to eat. I think it will be OK. It's just a little harder to find the larvae to pick out, since they're pretty much the same color as the oatmeal.

Beetle maintenance

I haven't posted in a long time, since there's not been much new in the mealworm world.

I did teach a session on mealworm cultivation at the WRNC (Wildlife Rehabilitators of NC) symposium at the end of January. Unfortunately, the weather was so bad that not many folks came, so I taught the class to five people! I've got a nice PowerPoint presentation, so maybe I'll teach the same one next year.

I had noticed that there was some smell coming from the room with the worm farm. The worms don't seem to smell at all (unless they're dead....and THAT'S a different story!) There is some odor to the beetle drawer. It had been a while since I picked out the dead beetles, and when I started picking, I found a lot. Now that they are cleaned out, the smell is gone.

I've been trying to grow more beetles so that I can gear up the worm production for the summer. I'm letting my two drawers of the biggest worms grow into pupae. My friend Martha gave me another cabinet, and I'll need it soon since I just started the latest worms in my last available drawer.

Catching up

I've been really busy with the holidays so haven't posted in a long time.

I've kept up with cleaning and harvesting mealworms, but did a lot of catching up today while I sifted my beetles, picked out dead ones, and cleaned two drawers of worms. I have been taking care of some injured birds, so I have made use of some of my worms. I've had a flicker (who has already been released), and I still have a Carolina wren who was caught in one of those awful glue traps, and a brown thrasher who was caught by a cat. They both love my worms!

I will be helping at the symposium sponsored by the Wildlife Rehabilitators of NC, and I will present a session on raising mealworms. I've got start working on my presentation soon!