If you are completely new to the idea of farming and eating bugs, the general consensus is that mealworms are the way to go. They have a high protein and relatively low fat content, reproduce very quickly and in large numbers. Female adults commonly produce hundreds of eggs at once and the same adults can then be used to re-seed new stocks of eggs every couple of weeks for the next 1-2 months, until their reproductive output becomes too low. One other advantage of using mealworms as your choice bug is that they can be stored in the fridge for months if necessary, provided they are taken out to be fed once a week.
Life cycle
Before I go any further, it is important for you to understand the mealworm life cycle. Mealworms are not actually worms at all - they are of the order Coleoptera, making them a beetle. Mealworms themselves are in fact the larval form of the darkling beetle. Beetle species make up 40% of all insects on the planet and mealworms are the most commonly farmed by humans, mostly for animal feed.
After breeding, female adult beetles will lay their tiny eggs in the soil. These come with a sticky outer coating to gather soil particles so they are concealed from predators. Once they hatch into their larval mealworm form, the baby mealworms begin to eat and grow - this is pretty much all they are programmed to do. Mealworms, unlike the larval forms of some insects such as butterfly caterpillars, have hard exoskeletons, meaning they have to periodically shed them in order to continue growing. Mealworms will continue successive moults to grow from the size of a grain of sand to over an inch long.
Once they reach larval maturity, they will begin to pupate and enter their third pupal form, in which their encased bodies turn to mush so they can re-assimilate into their adult structural form. The time it takes to undergo this metamorphosis varies with environmental conditions - high humidity and a medium temperature are ideal. The adult will eventually emerge small, soft and white from the pupa and over the course of a week or so, will eat and grow while its exoskeleton hardens and turns black. One or two weeks later, the adult will reach sexual maturity and begin to breed, thus completing the life cycle.
Small-scale mealworm farming
After doing a considerable amount of research into the practical aspects of getting a small mealworm farm up-and-running at home in the UK, I kept coming across the popular idea that "separation is key", keeping adults, larvae and eggs away from each other. Productivity is the reason behind this since both the larvae and the adults will eat the eggs and the adults will also go for young larvae, ultimately reducing the overall yield.
The setup
So now, the process. I used a number of example templates to formulate the most efficient means of running a mealworm farm. To begin with, you will need something to keep your mealworms in. I recommend a plastic six-drawer filing cabinet. Each drawer will be used to house mealworms at different stages of development. Some people cover these drawers in duct tape to keep the inside dark as the beetles in particular prefer this. Others also drill a few holes in the plastic for ventilation, but many believe that opening the drawers regularly to change out the food sources provides adequate aeration. The drawers I use are quite deep and not completely sealed so their inhabitants do not run out of air without these holes.
You will then need a good amount of chicken feed pellets for their bedding and the bulk of their diet - some people use oats and others use wheat bran, but it seems that ground chicken feed pellets have less of a risk of mould development, an especially crucial thing to keep an eye out for when you use potato slices as your moisture and food source. You can go old-school with your pellets and grind them with a pestle and mortar or you can get hold of one of those mini-blenders to expedite the process.
The farming begins
Once you have the whole setup in place, get in touch with your local pet shop and acquire your first batch of mealworms. A couple hundred or so will do to start off with (if you are following this small-scale method). Just before they arrive, grind up enough chicken pellets to uniformly cover the bottom of your lowest tray to just over an inch thick. Add your mealworms and a couple of moisture sources (I use apple slices and a whole carrot) and you begin the waiting game. At this point it is up to you whether you rescue the pupae as they form, as some mealworms have been known to suck pupae dry. Either way, eventually you will have yourself a nice collection of reddish-brown beetles. Allow these to mature for a week or so until they turn black.
It is now time for your first beetle transfer. Grind up your pellets, fill the next tray in the sequence as you did before and place on a table alongside the beetle tray. A pro tip for transferring your beetles is to add a fresh apple slice and wait for them to flock to it, allowing you to just pick up the slice and shake them off into the new tray. You can also filter the entire tray contents over a bin, through a sieve or plastic colander. The beetles should be all that are left in the sieve so just put them with the rest in the new tray and place the tray back in the cabinet.
More waiting... but you can give the old tray a rinse in the meantime, and don't forget that the beetles need food replenishing more often as you will notice they go through it much faster than the mealworms (who also eat the bedding). The rule of thumb is every day or two for the beetles and slightly less often for the mealworms, but just keep an eye out for mould along the way.
After a couple of weeks, it should be safe to say that your beetles will have bred and laid their eggs, but you should keep an eye out for the ever-so-tiny newly emerging mealworms in case the process is quicker than expected - the beetles will eat them as soon as they see them. When the time is right, repeat the apple slice transfer method to move the beetles one level up. You could always filter them again, which is quicker, but you will have to make sure that your sieve has large enough holes for any of your tiny larvae to slip through. Some think that doing this is not good for the larvae at this size, nor for the eggs. If you are using the sieve, make sure that the bedding goes back into the same tray (and not the bin) because, of course, there are precious eggs within. Top it off with more freshly ground pellets if needed.
All you have to do now is repeat the same steps, moving the beetles up a level every couple of weeks until they reach the top. When they do, begin again from the second lowest tray. Just keep the bottom tray out of the cycle, into which you can put any rescued pupae. When these then become mature beetles, just add them to the beetle tray so they can start breeding. Whenever your mealworm progeny in a given tray get to a decent size, go for the filtration method and discard the old bedding. Your mealworms can then either be stored in the freezer or fed to your chickens, whatever your desired outcome may be. Just remember to wash them before cooking if you are going to be eating them!
Happy farming!
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