Found an easy food for increasing mealworm numbers

[Nipper06]

I just wanted to share a discovery. I raise some mealworms for my finches that eat them (mostly my breeding green singers).

I was out of oatmeal so I put some dry dogfood in and the mealworm population increased like crazy. It must be the extra food value in the dry dog food. So, in addition to providing your mealworm colony with oatmeal or some other meal, try putting in a handful of dry dogfood and you will have lots of mealworms. You can also soak a few nuggets of dry dogfood in water and put that in as well, to provide the mealworms with a little moisture.

[L in Ontario]

I've heard of some people giving their mealies some dog food before but I have to wonder about it. After all whatever the mealies eat - our finches will be eating. Maybe it is good for them and maybe not.

Does anyone know for sure? I've heard bran is very good for gutloading mealies too but I don't know how 'fast' it will encourage them to increase their numbers.

[cindy]

They will eat dry dog kibble, old time breed breeders used this method for yrs! Mealies are fussy, add some flax seed, wheat bran, carrots, apples and potatoes, sweet potatoes, slice of organic whole wheat bread.

Side note: avoid dry dog kibble that has a lot of chemical additives and food dyes and especially ones with BHD and BHA in it, some are know cancer causiing agents in humans....funny they are banned in most human food products.

[debbie276]

I guess it would depend on which dog food your feeding them. There are so many more good dog foods now to pick from.
I would imagine that the dog food has a LOT more protein then oat or wheat bran.
I occasionally feed the cricket gut load to the mealies a few days before feeding them.

[CandoAviary]

Ron,
I have been gut loading and growing mealworms for years like this.The whole point of feeding insects/mealworms is for the higher protein content. Since mealworms on the whole when commercially reared mealworms lack a high protein content. The bugs hunted by wild birds are much more nutritous than the commercial bran fed worms...thus it is a good idea to feed your worms well
Here is an old post from March 2009 on it ... there are many if you do a search.
http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php ... rotein+dog
The mealworms are only as good as the food they eat. Most dog kibble is made with dofferent vegatable,bone, and meat meals.... just make sure it is a brand of high quality. Some of the organic brands are even better. I also will add some crushed bird pellets to the mealworm mix...Zupreem, rowdy bush, etc. and of course bran...though I use crushed bran flakes.
Happy mealworm farming

[cindy]

I would stick with the more organic, less chemical and additives...skip foods with a lot of red dyes, and chemical preservatives. Most good protien dog foods first 5 ingredients should start off with meats possibly veggies...it it starts off with corn or wheat products then be a little concerned if you are looking for high protien foods.

I have a WordPress blog in regards to cavalier dog rescue, I did some dog food analysis, I have a section in it the tells what to avoid and what to look for in both canned and dry dog foods, it might help when considering using dog food for your mealies...since birds are somewhat sensitive and considering the mealies are basically the nutritonvalue of what you are feeding them the article might help:

http://moorecavaliers.wordpress.com/200 ... dog-foods/

There are also comparison charts but you'll have to scroll thru to look at them.

We raised several kinds of insect eating reptiles for years, we used all kinds of higly nutritious foods to feed to our colonies of crickets and mealies. Packing the insects with healthy high quality foods is like giving them a high quality vitamin....Canadace we to used the bird pellets even for the insects we were feeding to the reptiles...great way to get what the bird/reptile needs as far as vitamins go!

[L in Ontario]

Great info. Do we have to crush up the dry dog kibble for the mealies?

[cindy]

you can fine grind it or just put the kibble in as is, either way....also try some dried eggfood mixed in...they eat just about anything you give them...I even boiled up edamame (very high in protien) gave it to my uromastxys and gave some to the crickets and mealies.

[CandoAviary]

I would put some dog pellets, rowdy bush pellets, zupreem or any vitamin fortified bird pellets in a zip lock bag and step on it to crush into different sized pieces. I found that a course consistancy like the size of grape nuts cereal or the small nibbles sized rowdybush was the best size. If you grind it too powdery then it packs down to much. With it more crumbly it keeps the air flow through the bran at healthy levels.

[cindy]

If you want to see how much they like something. push all the bedding an mealies to the sides of your container, put the food especially apples in the center....they work their way over and are soon a mass of mealies on top of the food. With moist foods or even powdered foods we often placed it into a small shallow plastic lid and placed that in the center. Granted when they move to the food they took some of the bran flakes with them...I even tried bran flour as bedding with the other dried foods like dog kibble, pellets dried egg foods ground up into the bran flour. When it came time to feed the finches/lizards we scooped up the flour and mealies and poured it through a fine strainer which left the mealies behind in the strainer...worked well also. Mealies are pretty versatile little creatures.

The only thing I am not thrilled with if the birds flung them and they crawled somewhere and showed up as beetles somewhere else. I had one set of birds bring the worms up to the nest box and drop a few only to be cleaning one day and found the beetles leaving the box entrance.

[L in Ontario]

My mealies now have dried eggfood, bran and dog kibble. I'll add some bird pellets tomorrow. Thanks!

[cindy]

Liz...do you made birdie bread? If so give them some of that to! When making it hold some of the mixutre aside and make a few cup cakes or bars with ground dog food in it! We should start a recipe book!!!! Finch forum recipes, cooking for your finches and mealworms!

[L in Ontario]

Yes Cindy I always have birdie bread ready for my parrots (but not for my finches). I will give the mealies a piece of that now too.

[CandoAviary]

My mealies now have dried eggfood, bran and dog kibble. I'll add some bird pellets tomorrow. Thanks!

Let us know if they multiply faster for you..... and of course how much your birds enjoy those premium mealies

[L in Ontario]

Gah! I don't want them to multiply! I'm done with that. I just want them to stay alive and healthy!!