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Live Food Culture
Birds in Focus... Mealworm culture Mealworms are a natural food and can be used to feed birds throughout the year. It can become quite expensive to constantly buy mealworms, and many people want to grow their own. These pages explain how to culture your own mealworms. For a constant supply of mealworms prepare a large circular biscuit tin as follows: punch small holes in the lid for ventilation, place a layer of old hessian sacking in the bottom and sprinkle fairly thickly with bran. Put a slice or two of bread and raw potato, followed by another two layers of sacking/bran/bread/potato, like a three-decker sandwich. You can put a raw cabbage leaf on top if you like. Keep the tin at room temperature, not in hot sun. Introduce two or three hundred mealworms into the prepared tin. After a few weeks the mealworms will turn into creamy pupae, then into little black beetles. The beetles will lay eggs which hatch into mealworms and so on. Crop as necessary. Replace the bread, potato and cabbage as necessary. If you want to start new colonies, prepare another tin and transfer some bits of dry bread (these will carry beetle eggs) from the flourishing colony. If you cannot face this performance, buy your mealworms from the professionals, consoling yourself with the thought that successful mealworm breeding is even more difficult than it sounds. Click on the link on this page to buy mealworms online. It is very important that any mealworms fed to birds are fresh. Any dead or discoloured ones must not be used as they can cause problems such as salmonella poisoning. Waxworms Waxworms do best in temperatures above 28°C put in large plastic jar, medium and all. Screw on the ventilated lid. Preparing waxworm medium. This recipe makes enough waxworm medium for students to put into their cups and for the classroom culture. 4 oz. glycerin 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 cup hot water 1 box (8 oz.) baby cereal (oat) Dissolve the glycerin and sugar in hot water. Cool the solution. Pour the whole box of cereal into a large bowl. Pour the solution in a very thin stream into the cereal while stirring enthusiastically—it should take about 2 minutes to dribble all of the liquid if you are pouring slowly enough. The medium will be somewhere between sticky, lumpy, and crumbly, and it will smell very pleasant. Store it in a plastic bag. Fruit Flies First is the container you should use. Any jar can do but the easiest is a one quart or litre fruit jar or sealer. Put a piece of cloth over the top and screw on the ring and you have a fully ventilated jar. Some recommend just punching holes in a jar lid but if the holes are too big the wild winged type of flies (sometimes called banana buzzards) can get in and your whole culture will take flight. Second, get a piece of the plastic mesh that is used to do needle work on. This should be cut into a strip that goes from the bottom to almost the top. This allows the flies to get out of the culture medium and is much better than cardboard or popsicle sticks. Third, you can buy almost every thing you need in the bulk food store. Pure Apple Cider Vinegar, Brewers Yeast, Corn Flour, Granulated Sugar and Mashed Potato Flakes. Using a measuring cup add 1/4 cup of the potato flakes, 2 teaspoons of the corn flour, 1 teaspoon of the brewers yeast and a 1/4 teaspoon of sugar. Then add the apple cider vinegar in small amounts until it becomes a paste with a smooth buttery texture. (The apple cider vinegar is a mold inhibitor.) Last, sterilize the jar with boiling water and put in your mixture. It should be about of an inch thick on the bottom. Tap the jar to spread it level. Next add the plastic ladder. Using a funnel made by cutting the bottom off of a large plastic pop bottle I shake about 30 flies into the new jar. In a few days tiny maggots can be seen on the sides of the jar. As they grow, they go into pupae stage on the sides of the jar. A few more days and they will come out as flies. A new culture can produce flies in as little as 12 days depending on temperature. Set up a new culture every few days and you will never run out. • 1/2 Cup Instant Mashed Potato flakes. • 4 tsp. Cornflower. • 2 tsp. Active yeast. • 1/2 tsp. Sugar. • Apple Cider Vinegar. I mix all the dry in a larger portion and when needed add in the Apple Cider Vinegar before I use this. The Apple Cider Vinegar has 2 uses, first it is a good mold inhibitor, and second it helps bind the items together. When ready to mix the dry with the Vinegar you will want to mix it in a 1:1 ratio, it will be the consistency of a dry paste. You don't want it to be too wet, or it will foul your culture. |
