A couple of years ago I started a meal worm farm for our chickens….I know I know I usually get all sorts of reactions from people on this one. However you have to realize the gals are a big priority around our Lil’ Suburban Homestead so while this may not be everyone’s cup of tea its a huge money saver if you like to give your girls a real good source of protein.
I had stopped keeping a meal work farm until recently and decided to start it back up again especially now since I have an additional flock to care for.
Initial Investment is about:
- an old dish pan or cat litter pan or you can purchase a Rubbermaid pan with a lid but you will need to drill holes in the top for ventilation.
- 500 meal worms for $12.99,
- a couple of scoops of oatmeal,
- some shredded paper (which I have plenty of),
- a spray bottle of water, and
- some table scraps of which I have plenty and you are set. (I use mainly carrots or potato chunks)
So its this simple….you take an empty bin, you place the worms inside as shown above, you then spread around some oatmeal about 3 cups, next you place a couple of carrot chunks or potato chunks in the corners they will use this as a water source too. Lastly you place the shredded paper on top and then spray it down to slightly dampen the paper on top. When you go out and check on your worms and you see little black beetles running around you know you are in business!
You have an environment that the worms will thrive in and your chickens won’t be lacking for protein and they will love this tasty treat!
I would recommend keeping this meal worm farm in your garage or shed not the house as they are dusty. I do not keep a lid on ours and I have never had an issue with them trying to leave however if I had these inside the house then yes a lid must go on! You do have to be careful of fruit flies though so I mainly give the worms chunks of carrots which the fruit flies are not as interested in overall.
If you haven’t ever tried this I think you will be surprised how quickly these meal worms multiply.
Wishing you a wonderful Tuesday!
Fondly,
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Oh, thank you! Just last night DH said he thought he was going to start a meal worm farm. Synchronicity!
Curtis Ann absolutely! I don’t believe in cooincidences really….. They are very easy to maintain and will make your chickens super happy! 🙂
No, there are no coincidences, only God-incidences. Your plain description/instructions gives me confidence.
CurtisAnn I am so glad….:) .I really try to keep things simple around here with working full time and going in a million different directions and coordinating calendars sometimes we have to. Let me know if you build one how it goes.
I saw great plans online for using a 3-drawer system that looked promising for this purpose.
Deborah this is a very unsophisticated version of some of the much nicer worm farms out there…..feel free to share the link of the one you liked. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
We used to do this, but for Sugargliders. We did it in the house though, it is far too cold out the better part of the year to maintain them outside.
Carol I forget not everyone lives in moderate to warm North Carolina…thanks for the reminder 😉
Karen we used to keep mealies for our anoles. You have some very lucky chickens. Are they not free ranging that you would need to supplement w/ mealworm?
*anna
Anna no way back a long time ago I blogged about how our chickens are in runs because we are only on a 1/3 of an acre and they were destroying all of our gardens and plants so now we let them out typically on Sunday afternoons to roam supervised the rest of the time as we are weeding and pull weeds or find worms in the garden or yank out old garden material we toss them in the runs….so yes we supplement with oatmeal, veggie scraps, and meal worms to help them have more variety!
Ah, that makes a lot of sense. The chickens can sure ruin a garden in a hurry! Mealies are pretty cool in their own right too.
*anna
Anna if we had more land they would be FREE like the wind 😉
Seems to be very similar to the vermicomposter I have set up! Not a bad idea… I thought about using the extra worms for my chickens, but I like the idea of meal worms as well!
Chris Miller
Chris they absolutely love, love, love the meal worms! I can’t vouch for how they taste though…;)
Hi, Loved your post , we would like to start a meal worm farm in India but we do not get meal worms here for sale . Any suggestions would be really appreciated. Thank You!
Thank you Sushma for your kind words glad you liked our post. You can buy the meal worms at Amazon and then once you start you won’t have to buy them again you can keep them growing. Good Luck! Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/1000ct-Mealworms-Reptile-Birds-Chickens/dp/B006JLJS2K