We soon learned that chickadees have an unlimited appetite for them, but we have a limited mealworm budget. (In fact, schools often raise them as a safe way to illustrate metamorphosis.)Īt first, we purchased a couple of hundred mealworms from a pet store.

They’re perfectly clean, non-slimy, disease-free, and don’t bite. Yes, it’s pricey but since we don’t eat at restaurants or go to the movies (getting DVDs from the library instead) we don’t spend much on entertainment.Īfter some initial squeamishness, we have no trouble handling either the worms or the beetles. We’ve resorted to buying 10,000 (that’s not a typo!) at a time from Buckeye Organics. How we raise themĢ022 UPDATE: For the last two years, we haven’t been able to successfully raise mealworms, but we don’t know why. The beetle is the adult stage of the mealworm. Maybe not thinking of the mealworms as “cute” makes it easier to serve them up as bird chow. Somehow, it seems a bit more charming when a butterfly caterpillar molts.

The mealworm The skin after molting The adult mealworm beetle We start with mealworms and after many months, end up with mealworms - BUT, with any luck, many more mealworms. The “worms” (really just a larval stage of a beetle) metamorphose into beetles, and then they lay eggs and become larvae (worms). The chickadee after some initial hesitation learned to find the side entrance hole. This is what we came up with - covering the open space with cardboard and cutting a chickadee-size hole. When the blue jay started visiting the mealworm feeder and gulping them down, we had to think of a deterrent.

Download living mealworms