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!

Uninvited guest

Well, things have been going pretty smoothly lately with the worms.....sifting, cleaning, and harvesting. I've been giving some of the bigger worms to my friend Mimi, who is raising opossum babies, and they love the worms.

Then, tonight, I pulled out a drawer of worms who aren't big enough to need very frequent cleaning yet, and....YIKES!... a BIG spider had taken up residence in the back corner! His legs were skinny, but he had a really fat body and I could guess why! I guess he thought he had died and gone to heaven with all those worms to eat! I should have taken his picture, but I was in too big of a hurry to get him out the door. I found a collection of worm casings in his web. He'll have to do some work for his meals in the future....or maybe he'll even BE s meal!

It's been a long time since I posted. There's not much new on the mealworm front.

I've gotten into a pretty steady routine. I sift my beetles about every two weeks. If I go much longer than that, the worm sizes vary too much. I looked at my notes on the drawer labels, and it takes about two months from sifting until my first cleaning.

I've now had ten batches. I had combined the first four batches since there weren't too many of those left. I've just cleaned them, and they will be fed to a robin during the next week. He was the victim of a cat attack and has a nasty wound and lost all of his tail feathers, so he'll be with me for a while.

Batch five, my next big batch, is needing cleaning every four or five days! There are lots of worms in that drawer!

I have divided my beetles into two drawers. It looked like they were just too crowded in that one drawer. A friend of mine (thanks, Martha!) gave me another set of drawers, and I've moved the beetles to that cabinet. The beetle drawers are a little bit smelly. I don't know if it's because there are some dead beetles in there or whether it's because there are just so many of them. I know that dead worms can really stink, so I'm trying to pick out the dead beetles regularly. It's easiest to do when I put their apple slices in the drawer. The live ones cover the apple and devour it, so I can find the dead ones more easily.

Cabinet picture

I never got around to taking a picture of my newer cabinet, so I'm posting it now.

I just combined my first three batches of worms since there aren't too many of them left. They are in the plastic shoebox on top. I've either harvested the worms or they have turned into pupae. I sifted my beetles again today, and I'm now on batch 8. Only the combined batches and the next one (batch 4) are big enough for harvesting. The pupae are in the plastic box under the shoebox.

Surprise worms!

I was picking out the beetles from the pupae box today, and saw a half-grown worm.  At first, I thought I must have had him stuck to my hand for him to get in the wrong place, but then I found several more.   I started stirring the bedding and found a couple dozen small worms.  I try and take the beetles out every day or two, but sometimes some get lost in the bedding.  I guess some were there long enough to mate and lay eggs, and now, I'm finding their offspring!  These worms haven't had any moisture.  I don't put fruit in this box, since the pupae are just dormant while they're in there.  I expect I'll find more there in the future.

Emerging pupa

I was picking out pupae today and found one that was just shedding its last worm skin.  Here's a picture of it.  You can click on it for a closer look.

More maintenance

I've rearranged my drawers during the past couple of days, picked out quite a few more dead beetles and modified my record-keeping method.

My first two siftings are down to not-so-many worms now, so I moved them to a plastic shoebox, since I planned on sifting the beetles again and needed their drawer for the new sifting.  The drawer which was sifted on May 21 is the only other drawer which has worms big enough to harvest.  I have four more drawers which have tiny worms.  I sifted the beetles again tonight, and when I looked closely at the siftings, there are already some tiny worms in there.

I was having a hard time figuring out how to keep my log, so I added a "batch number" to each sifting to help when I combine them as I harvest.

My last three drawers have been sifted at about two-week intervals, and that seems to be better.  I'm hoping my worms will be more uniform in size.

Farm maintenance

I've worked on several of the drawers during the past two days.  I cleaned the two drawers of mature worms and harvested some.  I've had some baby/injured birds to feed and am still putting some worms outside for the wrens that I've released.  I've got a pretty wide gap between the mature worms (some of which are turning into pupae) and the next drawer, in which the worms are pretty small.  I need to reduce the gap between worm sizes, which I should be able to accomplish by sifting out the eggs more frequently.

I'm posting a picture of two beetles, who look like they're making babies!  I saw these while I was picking out another batch of dead beetles.

Beetle dieoff

Two nights ago I noticed that there were quite a few dead beetles in my beetle drawer.  I've picked out a few in the past, but this was the first time I noticed very many.  Some were headless and some just didn't move.  I picked out about 1/4 cup of them by hand.  Occasionally I thought there was one that wasn't moving, and after he got into the "dead beetle" container, I noticed movement so he went back.

I don't know how long they are supposed to live, but I just looked back and saw that my first ones were "born" in late November and early December.  That's a pretty good life for a beetle!

Today I cleaned one drawer and also combined my first two worm drawers.  Most of the worms in those drawers are getting pretty mature, and I have harvested a lot from those drawers.  Many of those are morphing into pupae now.

Harvesting and sifting

I spent time this evening working on three drawers.  I cleaned one drawer, harvested worms from another and sifted my beetles.  

My neighbor wants to start her own farm, so she came over to see what I'm doing.  I gave her about two cups of worms to feed the bluebirds and wrens in her yard.  That would cost a lot at the bird store!!  They're easiest to harvest when most of the bedding has turned into frass, and you can just sift the worms out.  I've found that if I sift the frass two more times after the first sifting, I save most of the tiny worms that went through the first time without having to pick them out with tweezers.

It's only been two weeks since I last sifted the beetles, but now I have so many that I think I should do it more often than I've been doing.  I'm going to give my friend some beetles to start her farm so it won't take so long to get worms.

I've looked at the dates on my drawers, and have found that it takes about two months from sifting until there are worms that would be considered "medium".  I can see movement (barely) in the drawer that I sifted two weeks ago.  

It seems as if these drawers are progressing really fast now!  For the first few months, I thought I'd never get anywhere!

Keeping records

I had to clean one of my most active drawers again last night.  I've decided that these later drawers need cleaning more often because they have lots more worms in them.  That's probably because I have a huge number of beetles now.   I've got to give away worms or start selling them!

I'm showing a picture of the mealworm record that I finally got around to doing.  The sticky notes were getting messy!  "Sifted" means I started a new drawer by sifting the beetles out of their bedding.  "Cleaned" means that I sifted the worms out of the frass and added new bedding.

Traveling and cleaning

My worms have recently returned from a 1500 mile trip from North Carolina to Boston and back.  I was a little worried since these drawers are more shallow, and I was afraid that the stopping and starting of the vehicle would shift the bedding and let the worms or beetles get too close to the top so they could crawl out.  Since I now have six drawers, I really need the more shallow drawers, though.  I put wide shipping tape on the front of each set so the drawers couldn't slide open.

I sifted and cleaned two drawers of worms and gave them new bedding before we left.  I took some fresh wheat bran with us, and I did have to clean one of drawer again while we were at a campground.  Since it rained a lot and we spent more time than usual sitting in the motorhome, I didn't have trouble finding time for that.

I've got more worms that I know what to do with now, and lots are turning into pupae.  The worms in my drawers are more uniform now.  If I sift the beetles out about every three weeks, they seem to make worms a pretty uniform size.

I don't have enough to supply our wildlife clinic, but have more than I need to feed my outside birds or the babies I'm raising.  I've given some to my neighbor for her bluebirds.

When I sifted the beetles tonight, I found a couple dozen dead ones.  I've found a few before, but am really surprised that I went this long before finding more dead ones.  I didn't think they lived this long!

I finally made my chart showing which bin was sifted and cleaned when.  Hopefully, it will help me plan and figure out what works the best.

New housing

I'm changing all my drawers to the ones that are more shallow.  I bought a second set of three 12" drawers so I can have six drawers in just about the same space as my three deep ones.  This is partly since I'll be taking the "farm" with us in the motorhome when we leave for New England next week.

While I was moving the contents of the drawers, I noticed that the worms whose eggs I sifted on April 10 had lots of dust (frass) in it, so I decided to sift them and give them some new bedding.  This sifting didn't take as long as the first one, since the worms are more uniform in size, and not as many tiny ones went through the sieve.

I have seen quite a few moths flying in the house....the kind that get into bird seed, and I've found a few in my worm drawers.  I worry that they will lay their eggs in my worm bedding.   I doubt that they will do any real damage except make the bedding "webby", but I'm trying to find out which container of bird seed they're coming out of, so I can get rid of them.

My next project is to go through all my blog entries and sticky notes and make a chart of what I've done when to each drawer.

One more sift

It's been about three weeks since I sifted the beetles from their bedding, so I did it again yesterday.   I use the plastic inside piece from my salad spinner and it works well.

Today I bought another set of drawers.  These are 12" long but are the shallow ones just like my other deeper ones.  Since I'm needing more drawers and I don't think I need the extra depth, these will take up lots less space. 

We're getting ready to make a trip to New England, and my "farm" will go with us on another journey.  I need to figure out which drawers need to go with us.  This latest sifting can stay at home since it won't need any care for a few weeks.  The drawer of worms that I'm harvesting from has lots fewer worms in it now.  I've taken a lot of pupae from it and have fed lots of mealworms to my sparrows.  There may not be much left in it by next week.  I'll need to take the beetle drawer plus the worms in the next two sizes who are growing rapidly and need frequent feeding.

Sifting and sorting

I spent about two hours last night, sifting and sorting my first mealworm container.  There were two reasons: it had a LOT of "frass" in it, plus there was a really wide variety of sizes of worms in it.  When I got my first batch of beetles, I guess I waited too long to sift the eggs, and now that container has every thing from 1/4" worms that are the size of a hair, up to ones that are turning into pupae.  I really need to sort every two weeks or so to keep the worm size uniform.

I used my metal sifter to get the frass out, and only a few tiny worms went through.  I spread the worms and wheat bran (which was mostly eaten) into a plastic container and used tweezers to pick out the little worms, which I put into two containers: "small" and "tiny".  I have two drawers of smaller mealworms of two sizes.  I'm really surprised that the drawer I sifted on 5/21 has visible worms in it!

I need to make a chart of when I sift each drawer.  I have sticky notes on the drawers, and this blog is mainly for my reference, so I know what I did and when, but a chart would help.

I've also thought that I should buy another set of plastic drawers that are not so deep.  I don't really need the depth that I have, and having more drawers would be handy.

Grandchildren

I now have nine new beetles who are children of my first set of beetles.  I need to quit thinking of them as "children" so I won't have such a hard time using my very own worms as bird food!

My second sifting of eggs now has worms that are getting close to the size for bird food.  I've got to use my first set of worms a little faster, or I'll have them all turning into pupae.  Today, I had about 20 new pupae from them, and lots of worms are really getting fat.

Lots of mealworm work!

I spent the whole morning working on my mealworms.

I had noticed that the bedding in my drawer of larger worms was just powder and not the flaky wheat bran any more.  I was afraid that a lot of it was their droppings and not anything nutritious, so I decided to sift the worms out and give them new bedding.  I used a large metal kitchen sieve, and the powder went through well, and just the tiniest of worms.  I spent a lot of time picking out the tiny worms that had fallen through.  I just hate to waste them.  I had to use my long bird-feeding tweezers to pick them out.  If I had a garden, the powder would probably make good fertilizer!  After I got the worms separated, I took their picture and then put them in fresh bedding.  I also found a handful of new pupae and separated them.

I sifted my beetles again and gave them new bedding.  I used another plastic container for them, but I've got to figure out what to use for this fourth drawer.  I took their picture, too.

I guess the only way to keep the worms a uniform size is to sift the beetles more often, but that will take a lot of containers.

The Life Cycle Continues

I sifted a small batch of mealworms a few days ago and had them in a separate container to use them for my birds.  Today, I found my first pupa from my very own mealworms!  Is this my grandchild?

I also poked through my beetle bin and picked out a couple dozen dead beetles and beetle parts.  I've seen a few stray wings in the bin, but don't think I've seen any beetles before that I could tell were dead.  Most of these are several months old.  I replaced the newspaper layer, which was full of holes and had been there since November.  While I had the newspaper off, all the live beetles dug down under the bedding, and those that didn't move were possible dead ones.  I stirred it a little with my finger to look for any more dead beetles.  I put the ones I thought might be dead into a dish so I could see if they moved or not.  Sometimes the live ones will hold still a few seconds and then start wiggling  

I really need to sift the eggs out again, but I'm not sure where to put them.  I guess I need another bin!

I have two drawers with mealworms in them now.  Some in the older drawer are getting pretty big, and I'm expecting more pupae soon.  The other drawer has tiny ones.  I still haven't gotten the sifting method figured out.  When I sift, I still get a wide variety of sizes.  Maybe I need to sift more often into more drawers, but that will get complicated.