Cleaning them out is a MUST! They develop an odor if you don't. Hubby laughs at me when he sees that I have them spread out on a big sheet of wax paper and am picking them up with tweezers putting them in a clean container. I usually chop the carrots into small pieces so they can spread out in the container. I find that they eat better and last longer if I let them get to room temperature and give them the carrots. It seems like an icky job, but the BBs are worth it!

If they are smaller you can leave them out of the fridge to grow them bigger as they kinda go dormant in the fridge. I put mine in oatmeal, (not the quick kind) and feed them apple slices. I use mine up pretty quick so I normally only feed them when I get them then they go into containers in the fridge with the oatmeal. It is best not to put the moisture source (carrots/potatos/apples) in the fridge with the worms as it could cause there to be too must moisture and they could mold and kill the worms. They can actually last a long time in the fridge if you just take them out once a week to warm them up and feed them, then put them back in.

Hope your male blue finds a new female. Sad about the nestlings dieing!

Donna

Thank you everyone for all the info. Taking your advice, I have used the food processor chopping up carrots and mixed it with the worms. I have never fed the mealworms before, not sure how much to give them, is there a rule of thumb? How long do you leave them with the carrots? How do you separate them from the carrots after the feeding? I chopped up the carrots very fine.

The mealworms I bought locally were in a container with some dry, sawdust-feel kind of powdery stuff, is that oatmeal powder?

Don't know why I never thought of worm poop before, have been using my bare hands to get them out of bag they came in with. Yikes! :-).

Saw a female blue with the male this morning, hope he finally found a wife.

You wouldn't of had to chop the carrots up fine like that, it will make it much harder to get any of the leftover carrots back out. If I put in carrots I just coin them or slice in quarters, kinda like how you slice them to eat them. They just eat right into things. When I give them apples they pretty much eat everything but the skin and I just take those out when they are done. Sounds like yours came in wheat bran, they eat that too, along with oatmeal. If I have some long enough to take out after a week or two to feed, I generally leave them out for a day eating and then put them back in the fridge the next day. I just got my order of 10,000...gotta go get them into a container with some oatmeal and apples shortly.

Glad you are seeing a female Blue now too...you will be using those worms up in no time!

Donna

Thank you Donna!

I put mine in a mixture of whole wheat flour and corn meal. It makes it much easier to sift them out when you need some. For moisture I use only celery now. Everything else I tried got moldy. They will actually eat the celery right up so there's nothing left but strings.

My god, they really can eat, a lot!

I left the mealworms with chipped up carrots overnight outside the fridge, they ate all the carrots, nothing left. The mealworms seemed all get bigger. Added ground oatmeal, put them back to fridge, a day later, they seem all shrank. Am I imagining this?

Sorry to hear about your Blues!!!

We keep our worms in the fridge, and follow the suggested routine of bringing them out once a week to feed, and every 2 weeks I clean out their container.

Yes, I find that they plump up after they eat. I try to tweeze out the skins as they shed.

I keep them in a bed of Wheat germ, with some whole oats, and some corn meal.
We found that the Wegman's salad greens or spinach containers, which are clear plastic, work really well with holes poked in them.
Our worms are picky :). They so far have not eaten potatoes, carrots or other root veggies, but they LOVE love love Arnold's Oat bread. I lay whole slices on top of the worms, and they dig in, literaly. Also, I add apple slices - sliced about 3/8" thick, they will eat the apple down until there is only a ring of skin remaining - 2k worms will eat 3 slices in 24 hours or so. And ours are picky about apples - so far I found those in the Gala / Fuji family are good; they turn up their little worm noses at Red Delicious. Ours have subsisted only on bread & apples so far. I will try banana peels this weekend though, that's interesting... good luck!

I had ordered 10,000 mealworms and they were a bit smaller than I like them to be. So for just over a week now I have had them out in two bigger containers with Oatmeal and I have been giving them Golden Delicious Apples and Celery. They are a really nice size now so I need to get them into smaller containers and put them in the fridge.

Donna

I keep my mealworms in oats, they soon pulverise it into dust. To clean them out I use an old sieve. The oats stay behind with the mealworms and the spent bits as well as the poo fall through, I then use that as fertilizer in my garden. I feed my mealworms apple cores that they decimate until only the hard membrane and seeds are left, carrot peelings, cabbage leaf cores, green bean ends and any other vegetable peelings/trimmings. I keep mine in the bathroom where if they don't get eaten, turn into pupae and then beetles who lay eggs that turn into mealworms etc. I will try banana peelings, never thought of them as edible to mealworms.

I'm looking for all info on feeding and raiseing mealworms, such as type og bedding or oats to keep in, what to eed, etc, and breeding also, not to sell just to raise

I have mine in oatmeal. I feed them celery, apple cores and their favorite is broccoli. I keep them in an aquarium - in the laundry room. The have grown and multiplied. My chicks love them as treats. It has also been very entertaining to our 2 year old grand daughter, as we have watched the different stages of the worms. She gets a kick out of the "bugs" as she says. We make it not only educational, but fun.

I'm LOL, WonderWhiskers, at "turning up their little worm noses at Red Delicious." And to think I thought we were bad by being trained by the bluebirds to ONLY feed live mealworms. ... I'm new here. Just came to post a question about helping BB's get calcium. Now .. uh-oh ... I may never get to FaceBook to catch up with folks. I'll be reading here all I can. ... So ... Q: Oats? Wheat bran? Does it matter? (Oats sounds nice, since they can easily be sifted through it. Same with wheat bran, though?) We want to start feeding ours to keep them alive longer when needed, get them bigger if that is still as nutritious for the birds, and maybe raise our own, eventually. We want to feed the birds more than we can afford to. ;) 'Currently buying our mealworms locally at $15+tax per 1000 worms. While we can, I want to support local business.

Our bluebirds raised one brood and have 5 more eggs laid now. [New male in training. 1st male disappeared. Neighborhood cat or ?? Who knows. I just know that Mama-Bluebird is busy training the new young male. He won't yet feed the fledglings, but is feeding the mom, and is dutifully taking a worm to the house - again, in training? :) Love, love these little birds.]

BYW, this set of bluebirds is also willing to eat the dehydrated mealworms. !! Never before! Is it okay to feed more of them than the live ones, with plenty of clean water available, of course?

Please see my post asking about calcium if you have time.

Thanks.

Lori