[HollyHamster]

I would post a very long and detailed post about my newest adventure, but I think I'll just cut a long story short and say that I have decided to set up a micro mealworm farm.

Mealworms are the larvae of the darkling beetle (Molitor tenebrio). They are essentually grubs. They live in and eat stuff called bran. Its usually wheat bran. That's the sawdust looking stuff live mealworms come in at the store. They also need moisture, which can be supplied in the form of slices of carrot, potato or other semi juicy fruits/veggies/tubers (potatoes are actually tubers, the startchy root parts of the potato plant).

Mealworms go through a lifecycle much like a butterfly: egg, larvae, pupae, and adult. However, being little black beetles, they are noticeably not as colorful, or magical looking, hence the creepy crawly-ness that butterflies don't have.

Now, I must warn you, the next bit I am going to divulge to you is a little hard to swallow, no pun intended, so the squeamish might not want to continue reading.

Mealworms are used in several places in the world as human grade protein sources. Yes, that's right, some people actually willingly ingest these little creepy crawlies as part of their everyday diet. Not something I am brave enough to do, nor do I think that anyone on here is either, but its done. I've read that when fried up (which I think would make the whole kitchen smell just awful btw), they supposedly taste like peanuts. Just makes you want to throw a handful of chocolate coated mealies in your mouth, right? Didn't think so.

I think I'll stick to feeding the little beggers to my hamsters, thankyouverymuch.

Anyways, not to get to the whole point of this post. I bought a nice little setup to farm these little suckers, and will use the constant supply to feed my hams fresh live mealworms every now and again (and on the off chance that I get too many mealworms, I'll sell a few of them on Ebay or something).

I'll post pictures of my setup, to share with the few remaining brave souls who are still reading this thread, mostly because I don't have anything better to do, and just in case anyone else has the odd notion to set up a mealworm farm of their very own.