Meal Worms or Black Soldier Fly Larvae?

[MichaelDJ]

I've done a ton of R&D on this
All mealworms currently for sale in the US are from China. Many labels list a US company but if you read the fine print it will say a product of China. Chinese meal worms are often fed sewage because they are not for human consumption. Same is true for BFSL from China.
However, there are BFSL grown in the US but they are a lot more expensive and a bit less expensive are grown outside the US but guaranteed to be fed only fruits and vegetables. That's what we use.

 

[jlwquilter]

I mainly raise the mealworms for my chickens. 3 bins work best to keep the growth stages separate as they will eat each other to a certain degree. I have played with raising BSF and have had some success but haven’t got it down completely yet.
The insects coming from china are fed sewage and styrofoam! That’s why they are cheap. Not a good food source for my animals that are directly producing food for me to eat.
There’s a woman on YT that raises BSFL for sale using o my fruit and veggies sourced from food waste otherwise headed to the landfill. I watch her to learn more about raising BSFL. Her channel is FullCircleBio. She sells the dried BSFL for $5 per pound last I heard. I’d definitely check her product out as price per pound is really good and even with shipping you’re getting really healthy food for the chickens.
I have NO connection to her at all. I don’t think I even know her first name .

 

[nuthatched]

Amazon. They had them cheaper than the feed stores around us

Make sure of the origin source.

 

[bearcreekbees]

I mainly raise the mealworms for my chickens. 3 bins work best to keep the growth stages separate as they will eat each other to a certain degree. I have played with raising BSF and have had some success but haven’t got it down completely yet.
The insects coming from china are fed sewage and styrofoam! That’s why they are cheap. Not a good food source for my animals that are directly producing food for me to eat.
There’s a woman on YT that raises BSFL for sale using o my fruit and veggies sourced from food waste otherwise headed to the landfill. I watch her to learn more about raising BSFL. Her channel is FullCircleBio. She sells the dried BSFL for $5 per pound last I heard. I’d definitely check her product out as price per pound is really good and even with shipping you’re getting really healthy food for the chickens.
I have NO connection to her at all. I don’t think I even know her first name .

Actually, sewage and styrofoam are perfectly fine food for mealworms. Not what I feed mine, lol, but I have toyed with the idea of setting up a separate system just to process styrofoam. Plenty of studies have found that mealworms that have been fed styrofoam are just as good a food source for other animals, and people, as mealworms that have been fed other foods. The big hold up for me is that I use mealworm frass in my garden and as far as I know, frass from styrofoam-fed mealworms is not okay to use as fertilizer. Not yet anyway, but lots of people are working on that issue.

 

[jlwquilter]

Actually, sewage and styrofoam are perfectly fine food for mealworms. Not what I feed mine, lol, but I have toyed with the idea of setting up a separate system just to process styrofoam. Plenty of studies have found that mealworms that have been fed styrofoam are just as good a food source for other animals, and people, as mealworms that have been fed other foods. The big hold up for me is that I use mealworm frass in my garden and as far as I know, frass from styrofoam-fed mealworms is not okay to use as fertilizer. Not yet anyway, but lots of people are working on that issue.

Really? I’d love to see the studies on that. If the mealworms are metabolically changing the styrofoam into organic compounds that are bio available for animals that eat them that would be fantastic!
I too use the frass for my plants. Not only as a fertilizer but also as an insect control. Works great!

 

[jlwquilter]

Really? I’d love to see the studies on that. If the mealworms are metabolically changing the styrofoam into organic compounds that are bio available for animals that eat them that would be fantastic!
I too use the frass for my plants. Not only as a fertilizer but also as an insect control. Works great!

I googled . As a follow up, another study found that mealworms fed primarily/only styrofoam weren’t getting full nutrition and started eating each other. Honestly I get some of that in my mealie bins too. I admit I’m not always on top of their care as much as I should be.
I’m still looking for info on bio availability of nutrients obtained from mealworms eating styrofoam vs them simply eating it but it not adding to the nutrient profile of the mealworm itself as a food to other animals.
It’s one thing to have them eat it as a way to reduce that type of waste (which is great in and of itself!). It’s another thing for it to be a net add nutritionally to the next animal up the food chain.

As an aside, my mealworms eat cardboard and newspaper. I’m not feeding it to them as a food source. I put it in to provide a moisture barrier to the bedding for foods (newspaper) and as a dark shelter for them to congregate under (cardboard egg cartons). I guess I could use a foam carton and see what they do with it.

 

[Love Donkeys]

I don't do bugs, that's why I free-range my girls. Don't mind touching them, I just don't like to spend hard earned $$$ on them....

Years ago I worked in a sporting goods store. Come fishing season the store had live Crickets in an empty fish tank. Hundreds of tan colored Crickets in a covered tank being fed cardboard egg cartons. When the customer asked for the Crickets I was to catch them, count them and put them in a container.... I did it once and I quit! Couldn't stand 200+ Crickets climbing all over my arm. I felt like they wanted me for lunch!!!

 

[Down Under]

Not only as a fertilizer but also as an insect control. Works great!

That's interesting, I know frass is a great fertiliser but how do you use it as insect control ?

As for the raw sewage and styrofoam.. I'm a believer of you are what your food eats and I don't really like $h!t food

 

[bearcreekbees]

That's interesting, I know frass is a great fertiliser but how do you use it as insect control ?

As for the raw sewage and styrofoam.. I'm a believer of you are what your food eats and I don't really like $h!t food

You might be right, to an extent, but you are a human, not an insect. And if you consider that polystyrene is composed largely of carbon and hydrogen which provide the mealworms with a source of carbohydrates it is really no different from other food sources. It's all about the atoms- everything in the world is made up of atoms which, when broken down, provide nutrients for all of the various creatures on earth.

Now, if I was going to consume mealworms myself (I don't) I might also prefer that they be raised on grain and veggies, but in truth, it doesn't really matter.

 

[jlwquilter]

That's interesting, I know frass is a great fertiliser but how do you use it as insect control ?

As for the raw sewage and styrofoam.. I'm a believer of you are what your food eats and I don't really like $h!t food

First off I agree with the what they eat is what I end up eating too so try to stay with the natural foods like veggie, bugs, etc. I’m not a purist though. I do the best I reasonable can.

Ok the insect control part of grass works like this: when you add grass to the plant soil (I use a thin circle at the drip line) the plant sense the presence of a bug. It sends out its defenses. But of course there’s not really a live bug. Now a real bug comes along and poops. The plant senses it faster and sends out its defenses faster as it’s a ‘been there, done that’ reaction. It’s exactly how vaccines work.
I do re-frass every few weeks or if it rains pretty good. I have seen my plants decline and get bug attacked if I forget the frass them. The difference really is amazing.

Since I have chickens (duh) I’m using the whole mealworm cycle effectively and efficiently. The mealworms as chicken food, the frass to help my plants, the beetles lay the eggs and I feed the dead ones to the chickens too, and the eggs to keep the cycle going.

I feed the mealies older veggies that I get from a free source of my garden so no cost there. I bought 5,000 mealies from Rainbow Mealworms in California 2 years ago. Cost me $40 total at the time. Honestly 5000 was more than needed even with the learning curve losses but it was negligible for that amount given that shipping was half the total. I had over 12 bins of mealies at one time. Since I also had (still have as a small business) red wiggler worms I couldn’t keep up with caregiving. So I slowly decreased my mealie bins over several months by feeding them out more to the chickens. I am actually now in the process of ramping them up again so I can increase the feed out to my chickens.

The biggest out of pocket cost I have is bedding. I do buy wheat bran at TSC, bake it to kill grain mites, and store airtight until I use it. I haven’t bought any wheat bran in over 6 months so I don’t know current pricing. But a 50# bag lasts a very long time.

I also will bake and grind layer feed, oats, crackers, etc to use as bedding and food substrate for the mealies. Those items however I get free or really cheap.

I feel very good about my very modest investment in mealworms as the value I’ve gotten out of them. YMMV.