Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait How to Accidently Raise 1000's of Mealworms

So...in case you are wondering how to get some great protein for your pond and also great bait for kids to use...I have found a very cheap way to grow 1000's of meal worms....on accident.

So here is what you will need if you want to do it on purpose...

50lb bag of DuMOR Poultry Layer Crumble Feed - $12.99 at tractor supply.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/dumor-poultry-layer-16-crumble http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/dumor-poultry-layer-16-crumble
Some Rain
Texas Heat..(You may try your own state's heat too) (Temps have been in the 80's and sunny and 60/70's in the evenings for the past 2 weeks)

Leave bag of crumble feed next to chicken coup outside for 2 weeks during a big rain (if you live in Texas you may need to add your own rain from the faucet - 4 cup fulls at least)...leave bag partially open...as the gets wet, it will begin to ferment. This process will attract apparently lots of beetles..they will lay eggs in about a week or 2 and then you will get larve..a lot of larvae....1000's...

I think this is week 3 with it out there and there are probably 5000-10,000 meal worms or some kind of huge maggot wriggling around in the bag... I use a small scoop to get them out and each scoop probably pulls out 50-100 worms..(1/2- 1 inch worms.)
Way better protein for my chickens and now live bait for the fish.

ALL FOR 12.99!!!

So..I have been taking scoop fulls and throwing them in the pond..the crumble feeds the minnows and the mealworms are feeding the bass and panfish... best forgetful mistake I have made.

I don't know how long it takes for the larvae to pupate (I think 2 -3 weeks) but you may think about removing, bagging and freezing them..to keep them longer...before they turn into beetles...just a thought.

If it's hard to find good bait near your pond this may be a great alternative to nightcrawlers.

Hope this helps.

Great idea. One could seed the Poultry Layer Crumble with actual meal worms. We used to grow meal worms in plastic containers with corm meal as the food.

So I have ta ask, are chickens required?

I raised mealworms for decades. Wheat bran from the feed store about halfway up in a large tub. Every so often I'd throw in some potato peels or veggie scraps for a real treat. My young son confused the words drugs and grubs. Yep, Daddy raised drugs in our basement. It was funny until he told a CPO about it.

brook, how did you start out getting the worms? You buy a starter pack online or something? Then they sustained themselves just living in and on the wheat bran?

LOL, great post! Happy accident = brilliant scientific breakthrough!

Nope, nor is the coop required.. which makes this even easier to raise..

Can someone ID those worms in the picture at the top? They don't look like mealworms, they look like what they sell in the bait shops as 'waxworms' or a similar larva that has a larger body with a 'covering'

At least, when I looked on ebay for mealworms (which they sell very cheaply I might add!) they look more yellow/tan color, much thinner, with many segments on their body.

I'll attach the mealworm beetle picture and 2nd attachment the mealworms in a bowl, appetizing!

I must say no matter what beetle 3z3 had or what worms he produces as long as it is easy to produce hundreds of them that is all that matters for the fish and poultry!

They do look like waxworms in the photo, but I'm not well versed in such things. If they are in fact waxies, they are the larval stage of some type of moth. I have heard that they can devastate a beehive.

Canyon, all I did was buy a couple containers of mealworms from the bait shop and put them in the dry wheat bran and let them go. It was easy and clean enough that my wife never complained about them being in her house. As noted, I would occasionally add some cut up potatoes or veggies for moisture or when I wanted to procure a bunch of worms quickly. They will turn that wheat bran to dust. You'll see when you need to add more bran. The bran came in a 50lb bag and would last years. Once a year, I'd clean the container, removing all dead beetles, shells, dust, etc. by sifting it out in the yard. I only quit raising them because of the ease and convenience of GULP, Power Bait, and Crappie Nibbles. They're great for feeding birds and reptiles too. We were always feeding a blue tailed skink that lived by our porch.

Agreed on waxie ID.

Yeah I realized they were not mealworms after I started comparing pictures...
They will all be on the pond before they hatch, as I don't want the local bee populations to be affected by a few thousand of those moths..

The wax worm does look way closer to the pictures. I may do what Bill and Brook did and add a few meal worms in there as well.. Nothing like mixing up protein for the fish and chickens.


http://agriculture.vic.gov.au/agricultur...ey-bee-products
"Larvae are creamy white, but turn grey on reaching their fully grown size of up to 28 mm in length. After hatching, the small very active larvae tunnel in comb, lining their tunnels with silky web as they go. They move from comb to comb through a mass of webbing."

Also I have not seen any webbing whatsoever anywhere in the food...so I am not sure, if it's indeed a waxworm..

COULD BE SOLDIERFLY LARVAE

Jeff might have nailed it (soldierfly?) Because if it is moth larva (waxworms) then you have to figure out how the baby moths got in the bag in the first place. But a larva from a beetle or bug like the soldierfly makes more sense to crawl in there.

There is a huge thread on soldierflys on pond boss. Go to page 30 to see some of the larva in the pictures.

Soldierfly project on Pondboss

A picture from page 1 of the thread:

Good call, Soldier Fly just might be the ticket.

I think Soldier Fly is much more likely.

I think you guys are right, it looks more like a Soldier fly larva...that is actually better. I actually read through that soldier fly thread last year and thought it was a good idea...now I accidently did it... I feel like the movie "Pure Luck"

I may start another colony as these things are very hardy and are growing really large in that bag of chicken feed/protein... I've been throwing them into the pond every morning and evening...Now I just need to create a floating fish feeder where these things automatically start falling out into the pond..

Maybe I should bag a few and see if anyone wants any? ha.