Kudos to you for picking up handfuls of them! I don't mind if they crawl on me for a moment, but I would never just pick up handfuls lol. Very brave.

Thanks! One of the best, most informative videos I've found on this subject. You're doing such a great job and I hope my setup will be as productive as yours. Lots of great tips and ideas which I will definitely be using.xxx.

Wow, I am blown away by your setup and how many beetles you have! Great job. I’ve just recently started with a small colony and can’t wait to be at your scale!

When you grabbed all those beetles I almost jumped out of my seat

honestly it's so nice to be able to see a woman that will just pick up the bugs like I'm a 13 year old boy and I won't do that so great job

Wow. This video is, by far, the most informative out of the 20 or so other videos I have watched on breeding mealworms. Your progress is very impressive. Thank you so much.

One of the best vids on this subject I've found. I'd love to see an update if you worked out an auto-mesh sorting system, what kind of populations are you running now, and how the did the frass fertilizer project turn out.

Nice system for fishing bait. This is what I'm looking into.

You are my new meal worm goddess...hahaha...I have just started and your vid was very informative. I too have a vision of organically raised chickens. And I can't wait to use the frass on my very heavy clay soil...yay! im excited now! and it was cute to hear your animals in the background too!

hey sorry my tablet cut off my message. I started with 2000 and basically just let them do their thing. I focused on seperating the beetles to make sure they didn't eat eggs. That is the surefire way to grow numbers fast.

one of the best farms I have seen on youtube.

I like the info that you presented here, I found what I wanted to know. Your practical cavalier attitude towards touching hordes of beetles and insect poop was impressive and a bit unsettling. Thanks

This is the best video on this subject! I wish I could see an update. About how long after you started your colony (with the original 2,000 meal worms) did you make this video?

Well done Caitlin,ignore the smart ass remarks, you're getting results here.

Crazy never seen a women pick up a handful of beetles XP good vid

Interesting! I started with about 50 mealworms from a pet store and a tiny three-drawer chest. That was a little more than a year ago. I've got lots of beetles now, but, because my goal is to raise mealworms for human consumption, I need LOTS MORE!! I made bigger facilities for the beetles--two tiered with a screen bottom in each. I had to not only hot glue in the screen, but also hot glue down the duct tape I put around the top. It seemed like the beetles were eating the glue!! I'm ready to try making a bed of bran and quick oats that fills about a third of the sterilite box and just loading it up with beetles that go through the whole life cycle. His video shows a box with lots of beetles on top and LOTS of mealworms of all sizes on the bottom. Lots less labor with his method. Look for his video. He raises a number of insects and worms. From his video I learned how valuable the frass is! It has chitin and plants fed it develop resistance to insect pests. I feed only organic stuff to my mealworms. Late one night I checked one of my set ups I have and found that a big piece of cucumber had gone bad and got mushy, moldy. I wasn't ready to clean it right then, so, after cleaning out a big sterilite box the next day, went to transfer the beetles to it and found NO evidence that anything had molded in the box at all!! I was very surprised. And, I can only surmise that the beetles cleaned it up. I usually check the moisture sources I use daily and remove them at the earliest sign of spoilage. My beetles and mealworms LOVE apple slices! I liked it that they like cucumber, as I had a bumper crop this summer.

i never was weirded out by this either, its a good source of protien for alot of different animals..great video,thank you.

thanks soo much for this video i have chickens and feed cost in the winter is so high when you also have to pay for fuel oil i also use the meal worms for my venus flytraps and pitcher plants so this was a great video for gettin me started on an better alternative feed source for my chickens!!

Caitlin, I had a similar problem on one of my projects. I could not fine a strainer screen with big enough holes. I found this stuff called, "Plastic canvas, 7 mesh". It's for arts and craft type stuff. I laid the flat mesh over a bowl and heated it up with a heat gun until it took the shape of the bowl. It worked great for straining cactus pear seeds.

I am deffinatly going to start my own mealworm farm. Love the way u set yours up

Are you aware of how many girls/woman would puke... even men, at the sight of this? You are awesome! I am facinated by your "Not Freaking Out" ! AWESOME!

A.Aziz. yeah very thanks for your discareption really you are sure about what you are saying the correct for the way to get more and more breading mealworm. thanks

Thanks! now my lizards can finally have enough food! its way to expensive at the shops

Uncle Jim's worm farm is FAST! >TWO DAYS,

How do you discover such a clever way to take your beetles from the substrate? That was the main reason for me to even watch your video, but as I continued to watch, I'm glad I did! You're very clever! I can't tell you how appreciative I am that you are sharing your knowledge! Thanks again!

For anybody that has problems with mealworm pupa, I have very recently had a problem where 100% of my mealworm pupa is dying. All I did was switch to organic food and I was so relieved it worked!!

THANK YOU!!!!!!! I leaned how to make the farm all the other videos were crap

great video caitlin. I cant believe how many beetles you have. Lots of maintenance! :) Cant wait to see your ideas on the self-sorting

Amazing to see a woman not freaked out by insects.

Yeah really I am happy to get your information about breeding mealworm thanks

The holes are to stop any moisture building up, helps air circulate.sieve the beetles then you will also sift out baby mealworms. Cool

I do feed the beetles as well. I make sure the chickens have access to plenty of grit. Generally I give about 2 dozen chickens and ducks a large yogurt container once a week. I rotate the mealworms with the black soldier fly larvae and feeder fish.

This is the best video I have seen on mealworms, thank you! I have a fine substrate ( oats ran through a nutri bullet per another video I saw) I worry the substrate may be too fine, do you think this is a problem? Now that I see how fine the fras is I won't grind the oats anymore so it's easier to filter out the fras but should I change it out now? Thank you again for making this video, I can't wait to see your updated video of your more efficient system that you mentioned.

Respect to you mam, not too many ladies like entomology

Here in Mèxico people have eaten insects for millenia, Grubs, worms, crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, etc. Personally I had the (wrong) idea that they were disgusting, until one day when I was stoned (!) I ate some at a friends bbq... Since then I 've been raising mealworms for myself hahaha... quality protein with a delicious taste. One question though... would you eat mealworms if youre a vegetarian or vegan??? not strictly meat and yes full of nutrition from veggies! Namastè! Congratulations Cate!

Aanraku Frit Sifter you can get it on amazon. this thing is amazing! saves so much time.

Great video! I think its funny how you say this is a "small" operation when you have 2 inches of beetles! I though less than a 1000 was small !

I caught my beetles out in my flower bushes. The beetles I have now are about 9 months old and they've been laying constantly I have roughly 4,000 of these sucker right now.

I use the organic egg cartons

Caitlin, I have been watching tons of youtube material about mealworms, and I think that yours is probably the most comprehensive and friendly. I am raising mealworms myself for my own consumption, and now my numbers are getting really high and having to use a lot of time in maintenance. First, where do you find oatmeal at 10 dollars for 50 Lbs? Then, do you keep pupae separate, and how do you address cannibalism from larvae to pupae? I am having some incidence of larvae eating their sibling pupae while they cannot move. I would like to leave them together, and just wait for them to turn into beetles and take them out, but again time is a limitant. thanks for your video!

I started my mealworm and dubia roach farm today 😬 the roaches are SOOOO cute!

Nice video, i now understand it better, i also have a farm and i give them appels. I also found out that becouse of the heatwave here the worms evolve much faster to pupa stage, today i had 9 pupa while i first had 5 a day if i was lucky

pour drawer thru a cone shaped kitchen type strainer. beetles get stuck in strainer everything else passes thru. sorting done.

Great job. KZfaq is replacing the tradishional role of grandparents a few decades ago, with the benefit of the instant printing press. Decentralization is here to stay for those that don't want to be part of the borg. Thank you.

Yay. Another women doing this. My friends think I'm weird & gross. lol. Thank you for the info. 😊

I would have like to seen a little bit more such as you actually harvesting your meal worms, like what kind of weight do you harvest and how often, and then feeding the chickens. What price does beetle poo go for when packaged? Loved your video and thank you for sharing what you have learned.

2019 anyone ???

do we have news on the self-sorting project? 4:00

Nice .. now i can produce a lot for my turtles and myself

Hello and thank you for watching my video. I have developed a strong allergic reaction to the frass. I wear latex gloves, a face mask and take benadryl when I handle them. I will continue to breed them on a small-scale but I'm also adding in other feed. Red worms, black soldier fly larvae and feeder fish.

This is quite insightful!

Use a sifter with holes large enough for the substrate/eggs/babies to fall through but small enough for the beetles to stay in sifter. Hope this helps.

I am waiting for the follow up video showing your self sorting configuration! That's by far the worst part for me, picking through the bins for separation. I did start using your egg crate/carrot method for sorting live beetles out.

Few questions: 1). How do you prevent your beetles from devouring mealworms and pupa's? I feed my beetles carrots and lettuce but they still prever cannibalism it seems. 2). How do you tell when the beetles lay eggs? Since my beetles are eating the babies (I assume since 4 months of beetles and still no babies) I would like to separate the eggs from the beetles as much as possible. Great video! Learned a lot!

Are you still growing your own? I love your video and was wondering if you have found a better way.

I use a siv when I need to transfer my darkling beetles into another tub. It's a lot quicker.

Great set up !

But in all honesty I watched this because me and my grandparents get Bluebirds and they love the mealworms and I thought why buy them when you can basically grow them yourself but anyways it is a brilliant thing that you are doing.

I can imagine you are very busy on that homestead, but I hope you will be able to provide the update on your set-up. I have subscribed to your channel and will be checking for more videos. I would love to see a video of your homestead, also. I recently moved to my family's pecan farm in Texas and would love to get some backyard chickens and bobwhite quail. But for now, I jgot 1000 mealworms (from Uncle Jim's) last week to raise and feed the 50-75 bluebirds surrounding the house. Thx again!

Great video! I'm gonna get started! I think a cat house poop scoop would capture beatles but not the food or worms.

my meal worms started pupating yester day and its already 6 of them XD

You could cut the bottom of the top draw out and replace it with mesh and put the beetles in there and when they lay eggs the eggs would drop to the second draw and in the second draw you could have baby and eggs and when you see mealworm put them in the third draw for mealworms that are growing and then when they grow to adult you can put them in the fourth draw and then when they pupate you can move them to the 5th draw and when they turn to beetles move the beetles to the top draw

respect.. by far most informative video

it took me 4 months...but you can cut that number in half every time you double so it doesnt take long to build up some pretty big numbers.

Any problem with pests in the wheat bran? I heard that some people freeze the wheat bran for a few days to kill pests.

Makes me itchy watching the moving substrate

I tried to do the screens in the drawers, but it makes a big mess when you open a drawer. It also acts as a guillotine for any that are halfway through the screen.

very nice! what if you put the pupa in the same drawers as the beatles but on a small container so the beatles cant climb up. and once the the pupa hatch, they can climb down. One less sorting step

that's some mad fertilizer!

This is great ! Have you considered selling the mealworms to/in your nearest exotic pet stores? I think it's great you're planning to sell the fras!

i also have rats and mice that i feed to my fowl you can also raise flies and crickets frogs in the summer

Maybe put screen on the bottom of the drawer and the babies will fall through that it might be easier:)

saya menyukai video ini ,... saya juga ingin sekali ,belajar dengan anda cara berternak mealwon/ di indonesia di kenal di namai ,ulat hongkomg..trims...

damn at the mealworms.. i started with 100 about a year ago.. maybe 5k now.. had a couple wipes tho due to lack of water.. i forgot to give them carrots for about 2 months.. lost alot but had enought alive to contunue

dear caitlin thank u very much for your wonderful ytube...can u let me know how u sift the tiny worms and eggs before u sell the cast...thank u, have u changed ur system..god bless

I will be getting Quail in another week on July 11th 2024 I am thinking of getting 2 sets and well I will be supplementing them as well as the squirrels and birds for winter I have a couple hundred beetles and a couple thousand micro meal worms and medium But i just ordered another 2,000 Meal worms from online.

Really helpful video... I actually have some baby mealworms now and they are living in shallow layer of oats but what else do they need? I`ve tried putting carrot pieces in, but they don't seem to get touched... there are a number of babies, but they are hiding in the oat bedding and hate the light!

Superb, how long it takes to harvest meal worms and superworm. Which is the best meal worms or superworm.

Awesome video. I have a few questions as I contemplate starting a three drawer system like yours. 1) Are these in your house? 2) Do any ever crawl out? 3) How do you separate them? 4) What temperature do you keep them at in winter. I am going to have to put them into my home and I'm a little scared....

I'm raising my mealworms for my reptiles but since I do have a few chickens if I over populate lol I can give them to the chickens!

Hello, awesome and very useful video, thank you! Do you possibly have any update on your mealworm farm? Were you able to solve your transferring issues? Thanks!

Thanks! Really helpful.

Once the pupa turn into beetles, how soon do they start to lay eggs? Will they lay eggs until they die or is it a short time frame from morphing-perhaps a couple of weeks??? How long do the beetles live? I just started breeding mealworms for our 10 chickens. Thanks!

Going to start my own colony so I can feed them to my fish

i am trying to do a self sorting farm by putting a screen under the beetles container so that when the beetles lay eggs they all fall through into my mealworm container bit im not sure how much work it will be to move the pupa's edit: and i have learned that the beetles will not attack the pupa so that cuts work down

Hi... Thanks for the great vid... New to mealworm farming... My darkling beetles are flipping over on their backs and dying... Temp is 66-67, the humidity is 24 (which I know is low), . Could it be the low humidity? I have a cup with water in it, in their bin, bran oats & im always adding fresh carrorts (non organic):/

Wowwwww, super cool 🤫🤫🤫

Great vid Caitlin, thank you. I just have one question. Will my chickens eat the beetles as well as the worms? Thanks.

Your farm is awesome. I have about 1200 beetles and 2800 mealworms now. but I started with about 2000 worms in the begining. How long did it take you to get as many as you have now and how many beetles/mealworms do you have?

What do you put them in? I've been using oatmeal! Do you recommend a certain brand ?

They will choose vegetables and fruits over eating pupea/worms. I have breed them for months now and never seen them even bite anything but food and the paper I have in there for them to climb.

Awesome video. How do you measure/determine quantity to feed to your flock as a grain replacement/supplement? I know my chickens would eat a whole drawer full if left to their own devices!

I would like to know if there iz a particular way to breed crickets without to much of a messy cleanup process???

Sifters are sooo much easier... If you want to have a small mealworm farm... Say 200-1000 sifters are very much easier... I have a question though- how do you harvest so many beetles in the same drawers as the pupaes?

Very nice video. Have you changed your methods since making the video? Did you work out a self sorting setup? It looks like you're inside. What temperature do you keep the room? Do you need to wear a mask every time you deal with the mealworms/beatles?

Have you thought about putting beetles in the top then having a gauze or mesh big enough for eggs to fall through but not beetles. Then they will turn into mealworms in the tray at the bottom.

Hi Caitlin, Do you plan on producing an updated video on your mealworm farm status? I would be really interested in seeing how it is now and what changes you made since Sept last year. I've watched this video so many times and started my farm for my chickens. Currently I have about 10k beetles so it's growing fast.... Thanks for all the tips you provided. Sally

i believe it was about 3 weeks. I bought the largest size mealworms to ensure they would pupate soon after I bought them. Keeping the temperature at 77-78 and increasing the humidity a bit will help move everything along faster.

Nice video. You still farming mealworms?

Hello, at 2:28 why do you compost the dead beetles when you can feed them to the ducks or reptiles?