I Got Worms!

It's a busy time of the year on my little urban farm. I have new chicks that I'm raising indoors until they're old enough, who peep at different times of the day; one of my cats, Blackie, keeps going inside, then going outside; my adult chickens are enjoying sunning themselves on the warming days and grabbing every new blade of grass that grows and well, yes, it finally happened-- I GOT WORMS!

Okay, so I'm sure you're saying "What the Cluck?!?!" to that. I think about the character Lloyd in the movie Dumb and Dumber and every time I think it, I laugh. Believe it or not, it wasn't the animals in my little urban farm that gave me worms-- I blame Petco. Okay, so it wasn't Petco's fault-- it's Rural King! Yeah, Rural King! The farm store with the giant 20 oz. bag of freeze dried mealworms that proclaimed loudly on the front of the bag "Your birds will love you for it!"  My current adult birds have just passed their one year of age mark and when I first got them, I didn't know squat about raising chickens. I asked a few friends who were less than willing to offer advice and gleaned every ounce of information I could from just about every chicken blog/info. site out there. I thought the chickens would like to have the freeze dried worms-- no, rather, they NEEDED to have the freeze-dried, crusty nasty things! After all, I wanted my birds to love me for it!

The freeze dried creatures didn't come cheaply-- 20 oz. for around $20 and all it took was a few feedings with them and now the bag is like chicken crack. All I have to do is go inside and grab the blue bag and no matter where my birds are in the yard-- they come charging like American Pharoah on Preakness Day! They don't move away from the bag at all either. I can move the bag behind me and they lag behind, I move the bag out to a stretched arm's length-- they look at it with Pavlov dog's eyes. I swear if a chicken could drool for wanting a treat, these girls would! So, a sucker was born with the freeze dried mealworms.

I've been purchasing the blue bag every few months or so and using it as bribery bait to get the girls to go willingly into their coop at night. It's a little bedtime snack and the equivalent, I guess, to a chicken wanting a glass of warm milk and being tucked in. One evening, I was curious to the origin of the worms so I looked on the bag. There, in the fine print, was the country of origin; China.

Now, I don't have a problem with China at all- no problem with the language, the food, etc. But the fact that these worms had traveled such a far distance and fed goodness knows what and stored in goodness knows where, made me think twice about the eggs that my girls produce. I'm sure that everything is great-- no one who has eaten the eggs from these happy chickens has suffered any ill effects (or at least, not that they're telling me- ha!) and the birds seem very happy and healthy, but I guess it was my want and need to have a hand in another aspect of producing food and to feed the thing that produces the food for the humans, good quality food as well. I wanted to raise my own mealworms to feed to my little cluckers.

I began doing all sorts of research on how to raise mealworms, things that honestly look like they've just crawled from some dead carcass, took steroids and ended up in a tray of dancing oatmeal. It didn't seem terribly difficult so took the plunge and purchased the items I'd need for my own mealworm haven.

First were the worms, I visited my local Petco and went to the reptile section where I found that not only were there mealworms available, but mealworms by varying quantity, size, and type. I also noted the prices of the "premium" reptile food. $3.99 for 25 mealworms. Yikes! Well, this was why I was wanting to raise my own-- I shouldn't let cost be a factor. I bravely opened the lid to one of the 25 mealworms container. I saw sawdust and three dead mealworms resting on top of the bedding. Hmm, that's nice, I thought, they sell the package as 25 mealworms, but three of them are already dead?! What the  Cluck?!?! I gingerly moved my finger through the bedding, finding another, and another and another dead mealworm. This wouldn't do at all! I moved from the 25 mealworms to the next level up and more costly, the 50 mealworms. This container also had the statement "Superworms" on the front of it. Wow, I thought-- these must really be something!

I opened the lid to the "Superworms" and saw 10 very fat, very active worms moving on the top of the bedding in this container. This was my winner! Perfect breeding stock! *stifle laughter here* I noted the price, $5.99, and proceeded to approach the front counter with my purchase. Check out was a breeze and as I walked to my car I realized that I needed to get the three drawer container that I had seen in almost all of the YouTube videos on how to raise mealworms. I also needed to get carrots, oats and window screen. I looked at my choice of stores available as I touched the handle to my Honda Fit. Walmart. Walmart was going to be my best choice for getting all of these things and getting home before the sun went down so I could watch my girls in the yard for a few moments. Side note-- don't ask me why, but I love watching the birds peck and scratch, especially at the end of a long day of work.

Those who know me well, know I absolutely abhor Walmart. I don't like having to go into the store, I don't like shopping there-- I really don't like much at all about it The parking lot is scary and people race through the aisles like they're at a NASCAR race. Now, I apologize to those who like and love the store-- I think it's great that you like it. It's just not my thing. However, it was going to be my best chance for success to find the four things that I needed to complete my worm start up kit so into the store I went.

Fortunately, I found my items quickly and now that there is a self-serve checkout-- I was out in just a few minutes with a huge roll of screen, a three drawer container, some carrots and a tub of oats. I wasn't sure whether to get quick or old fashioned oats so I opted for the later thinking the crawlies would like those better.

 



I came home with my worm start up kit and assembled the three drawer rolling cart. Unfortunately one of the casters on it didn't want to fit in the hole provided so I took care of that quickly-- drill bit to the rescue! I poured the package of oats into one of the drawers, snapped a whole carrot in half and tossed that into the oats and then released the worms. They immediately started burrowing into the substrate-- giving the appearance of bubbling oatmeal. Gross, I thought. I knew that I needed to get the bottom cut out of one of the drawers and the screen applied, but I thought I'd do one more check of one of the YouTube videos that I had saw that showed how to do the screen.

What I found was that I had just purchased the wrong type of mealworm. Apparently, the Superworms are extremely difficult to make more of and require a lot more work. Great. Well, we'll let those Superworms enjoy an evening or two in their little worm Hilton and then, when I get the regular mealworms, we'll let nature happen the way it's supposed to and the chickens will be well fed that day. What the Cluck?!?!