# Mealworms raised on chicken feed?



## Latrine (Mar 4, 2014)

Last time I raised mealworms I had them in a container with cereal/oats and of course some kind of veggie for water. They did great and I don't know why I would want to mess with a good thing but...
I'm reading about people using chicken feed in the containers instead of the cereal stuff and I'm wondering if that might make the worms more nutritious for my hedgehog. 
I don't know.. It's 'chicken feed' not 'mealworm feed'. But we did have some chick feed we bought from a neighbor once that wasn't quite proper (chicks became malnourished and required hand feeding.. They did fine aside from being a little small) Well, we removed the large container, set it aside next to a different building and promptly forgot all about it. (For months  )
When I remembered it, I opened the container and shrieked because it smelled horrible and it was full of mealworms. They seemed like very fat and happy mealworms until I rinsed them off and my chickens ate them.

Has anyone tried? Maybe it doesn't really matter.. 

- Sarah


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## Tongue_Flicker (Jun 11, 2013)

By chicken feed do you mean those brown, powdery stuff? If so, yes those are also good to use in order to gutload mealies


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

I would be leary about feeding it to mealworms that my hedgehog was going to eat. Often there are medications etc added to chicken feed that could be toxic to hedgehogs


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## hlsiefken (Jan 23, 2014)

I would only use natural products if it were me. I farm them because we have reptiles as well. I like to know exactly what's going in my bugs, lol! I do an organic oatmeal and grain mix from Trader Joe's and organic greens (which mine go CRAZY over) like spinach, arugula, kale, spring mix, etc, and organic carrots the most often. Sometimes I do fruit like apples, and sometimes potatoes but what I mentiond I typically always have on hand at home. I also feed cricket food sometimes but it's just a mix of things like Wheat bran (which you can buy in bulk and that's also a really good choice), bee pollen, spirlunia, and other really healthy things.

The one thing that is consistently just totally gone in a matter of hours or by the next day are the greens. Of course, if you are just buying them occasionally, and not farming them, the best thing to do is to keep them in the door of your fridge- the cooler temps will put them in a dormant state and they won't grow. You will want to want them up about once a week and offer them food for a couple of hours and then put them back- that is what I do with the ones I'm not farming, unless I have plenty to feed off. We just started over so I still don't even have micro mealies.


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## Latrine (Mar 4, 2014)

While we have the medicated stuff on hand, in case of illness, we actually only feed non-medicated feed to our chickens. (With the exception of babies, if I hatch my own, they are fine but if I purchase chicks from elsewhere, they go on medicated feed for a few weeks, it's too easy to lose all the babies due to one sick chick! 
If the adults ever need medication then we have to throw away eggs for weeks until the stuff is out of their systems.
It's the pelleted feed, not powder, as they are too wasteful with the powder. Our chickens are pets and provide yummy eggs and they are pretty darn spoiled!

Not to get into any sort of argument but, If you guys feed chicken to your Hedgies and you aren't buying organic chicken, then it's the same thing, isn't it? Hedgie is eating what the chicken ate. 

That's why I liked the chicken feed idea, because it wasn't medicated. 
But... Honestly, the chicken feed is going to be way more expensive so we are looking into whether the mealies can handle WHOLE oat/bran that we grow ourselves on our farm.

I was talking large scale, so we can also supplement/treat our 40+ flock of poultry. We are also considering several extra colonies to sell for fishing.. Other pet owners, etc. Maybe some other types of worms as well.
My fiancé is actually getting kind of excited looking into some worm casting stuff for the garden.. (We would need billions of worms for the fields! Lol )

Anyways, lots of ideas!!! I'm excited  
Thanks all!!!

- Sarah


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