Over the years I've raised mealworms for chicken feed many many times. In fact, I do it almost every spring/summer. It's when winter hits that I never wanted to bring them into the house so I'd give them all to the chickens. My chickens love the mealworms, and raising them is much more frugal than buying them...so last year I finally started raising them in the house during the winter. It's not so bad.
Mealworms are small, quiet, don't smell, don't take up much room and require only a few minutes of time every few days once established. A mealworm farm can be kept in an aquarium or plastic tote. You don't have to worry about them getting out since mealworms cannot climb up the sides of glass or plastic containers.
But lets talks about the free feed aspect which is one of my favorite topics! A container of mealworms is around $5 to get your mealworm farm started. You'll need oats (dollar store) or wheat bran for bedding and some fruit or vegetable scraps for food. They get all the moisture they need from their food so you won't need to give them water.
I use plastic bins from the dollar store, but an old aquarium or rubbermaid tote works fine too. As you can see it's pretty cheap to set this up. I spent around $10 to start my current mealworm farm and it's been producing treats for my chickens for almost 18 months! I would have gone through at least 2 bags of mealworms by now, and at about $25 a bag....that's a big savings!
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Raising mealworms for free chicken feedwas originally posted by Favorite Chicken Blogs
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