Mealworms as food
Mealworms are a favorite food for many birds. I raise my own mealworms since they're a little pricey (although I've often bought mealworms when my supply has run out). I purchased about a hundred mealworms from a pet store and put them in an old dishpan with chick-starter and unprocessed bran. I put some thin slices of apple on top, which I change every few days, and covered it with a paper towel. I covered the dishpan with cheesecloth. I originally clamped the cheesecloth all around the edge, but I realized that they don't seem to be inclined to leave (thankfully). The only reason I put cheesecloth on the top now is to prevent powdery gray pantry moths and to keep fruit flies out.
One problem I had was that our cellar remains pretty cool (about 50 degrees) in winter and much of the summer. I think this was my biggest obstacle to growing a good crop of mealworms. I had my first success in late August when the cellar had finally warmed up a bit. I'm now keeping them in shed in the summer.
The "worms" (really just a larval stage) metamorphose into beetles, and then they lay eggs and become larvae (worms) again. You start with mealworms and after many months, end up with mealworms - BUT many more mealworms. I now have enough mealworms that I can feed them to the birds as a very desirable, nutritious, but free, source of food.
After some initial squeamishness, I have no trouble handling either the worms or the beetles. They're perfectly clean, non-slimy, and don't bite. The beetles do seem to cling to your fingers a bit when you transfer them between containers, but you can easily shake them off.
Some people may balk at this, but in order to save your "crop" of mealworms, you store them in a cool place - for most people, this means your refrigerator. Just make sure you label the container well so no one looking for a snack freaks out! I have used two half-gallon plastic ice cream containers with holes poked in the top. Seeing these containers of worms in my refrigerator (along with packets of seeds being cold-treated for later planting) is perhaps the most dramatic symbol of how my life has changed since I became enthusiastic about habitat gardening!
My initial problem was how to get the birds to realize that the mealworms were available for eating. Aside from house sparrows who are great opportunists, the catbird was the first bird to discover them. I later was successful in getting chickadees to discover them by putting some on the wooden shelf of my hopper feeder when they were around the feeder. They noticed them right away, and I was able to put them in a dish I held. Eventually, I got a small window feeder and put them only in there. The chickadees and titmice aren't afraid to come to the window, and usually the house sparrows don't.
Last updated 02/05/2009