I blame this on old school LOL, well not blame, perhaps as much as she made a excellent case on why I should have them… 🙂

So first let me say that I am aware of that bran is a better medium  but I had lots and lots of oatmeal in the house and that is what the meal worms where in when I got them, so I figured starting them with the same is a good idea.

While I found good prices on the net, I was a little leary about ordering online, if anyone can recommend a good canadian source, I will consider it but I didn’t want to order blindly. the first pet store I went to, didn’t inspire, they kept trying to sell me superworms as mealworms and even with my limited knowledge, they are not the same.. she was sure they were just a bigger version.. so I got one cup of what she called small mealworms, the second shop didn’t sell live ones, only dried or frozen, and the third only sold smaller amounts of Small ones.

This would allow me to start to groups from different sources, so we stopped at the local second hand shop an for 50 cents each, I got my bug containers, that are dark on the bottom, have smooth non-climbing sides, and lots of fresh air, I used oatmeal which I will start to do a mix of bran and will slowly move them over to half and half, I also intend to add in some oyster shell in each box and to mix up the food supplies, but for last night at least I went tradional and gave them carrot slices

I will refer to store 1 as group one and store 3 as group 2, Group one had much larger worms in it, in fact by my measuring some of them would be considered large per the net measurements and the rest would be consider medium, it was a lively group, and they are settling in well, they are already active feeders and were very fast to dig into their bedding.

Group two was not, they were slower, smaller, seemed to just have a harder time overall and they are feeding less, they also seemed to come with more dirty bedding and alot more shedded casings, I am really glad that I didn’t mix them, I am not saying they won’t both do well but there was a reason that I wanted to try for two sources to start with.

Now, I will need to at some point pick up a third box, and it will be much bigger for grow out, the two I have now are perfect for adults and egg laying or small ones but once they get bigger I will move them over.. I have them the house inside cardboard box’s to help with heat, as I keep my house very cool and they need a certain temp to produce at the best rate possable.

Now I will own up to the fact that even though I can handle them and I do understand their purpose, I don’t much like maggots, they wig me, I always get that shudder down the spine and a tighening in the shoulders and then I just deal with it..

These mealworms give me the same wig in the way they move but they do look different, and I am going to have to get over it if I hope to have serveral thousand of them growing at any one time.

Now if you are thinking, WHY would you want thousands of them, the answer is two fold, one they are excellent for the turtle (but lets face it, she is only going to eat a few at most once a week) the big reason is for the chicks and chicken/birds.

You see trying to get non-gmo corn is hard, and even if you can track down, you pay though the nose! for it, and I need to increase the protein count in my chicken feed, not by a lot but some and I need to be able to have a way to get that steady protien feed that will work in winter as well as summer, red wiggers are good but they just don’t produce at the same rate as these guys can.

Once the temps are good, they are going to come out of the house but for winter raising, they will need to come back in.. so wish me luck and I will up date as it goes..