To run a good mealworm farm, the breeders should do a lot for good management of the mealworms raising and disease prevention. As the professional mealworm machine manufacturer and supplier, we Shuliy machinery summarized years’ experience of the mealworm breeding and would like to share the useful tips here.
To keep clean is critical for the mealworm raising
The clean environment is very important for Tenebrio Molitor’s growth, which can not only reduce the mortality of worms and speed up the growth of worms, but also make the commercial larvae of better quality and sell for better prices. There are mainly two ways for doing the clean work for the mealworm breeding plants:
- The mealworm screening machine is often used in the breeding of mealworm(Tenebrio Molitor/barley worms), especially in the larva, pupa and adult stages. When feeding the larvae, most farmers will choose to use a variety of vegetable leaves and wheat bran. After the larvae grow for a period of time, the culture boxes will produce a large amount of dung and insect skin, and even some dead insects, the whole culture boxes will appear gray and black. At this point, the breeders need to screen the larvae in the breeding boxes in time with the automatic mealworm separator machine. Dead insects, insect skins and dung, as well as leftover and contaminated feed scraps will be removed quickly.
- Feeding boxes should always be kept clean. Dead pupae or adults should be removed in time to remove the molting and feces of larvae. The cleaning method is: Do not put the feed into the feeding box for the first three to four days of cleaning and try to let the worms eat up the original food. Then use a sieve to sieve worm feces and separate worm skin at different ages. Small Tenebrio Molitor farmers can choose several different sieve sizes for manual screening.
How to prevent the disease from mealworm farming?
1. With the change of temperature in different seasons, the management methods of mealworms are also different. If weather temperature is high, larval growth is exuberant, want to have enough moisture, because this must feed the feed that contains moisture more, pay attention to the ventilated drop in temperature even. In winter, you need to feed less succulent food and keep warm from the cold.
2. Mites do great harm to yellow mealworm, resulting in an emaciated insect body, slow growth, low egg hatching rate, reduced facility, etc. Generally, from July to September, the temperature is too high, the feed temperature is easy to produce mites. Prevention and control method: strictly prevent feed with mite. The bran, bran and other feed can be separated by steaming for 20 minutes for disinfection. Usually want to maintain indoor air circulation, reduce humidity. Especially in the summer rain humidity is too large, try not to throw or less wet feed. When you find mites, keep the feed in the sun for 10 minutes. At the same time, ants, mice are yellow mealworm enemies, usually should pay attention to eliminate.
3.There are two common diseases of Tenebrio Molitor: dryness and soft rot. After suffering from blight, the head and tail of Tenebrio Molitor were withered, and finally, the whole body withered and died. Control method: In the dry and hot season, timely put succulent feed or sprinkle water on the ground to cool. With soft rot, the worms are slow to move, the stool is thin, the worms will become black and rot, and eventually die. Soft rot occurs frequently during the mildew rain season. The indoor air is humid, the feed is too wet, the stocking density is too high, or the insect body is injured, etc., which can easily cause soft rot. Control method: Take out the disease and insects in time, remove the residual food, and adjust the indoor humidity.
