The weak eat the strong in nature, and it happens from time to time! Not only in animals, but also in insects.
Mealworms in captivity
Mealworm, also known as bread worm, protein worm, noodle worm, gold worm and so on. It is one of the high-quality live baits that we like to cultivate ourselves the most. The mealworms I cultivate are mainly used to feed chickens and scorpions, and sometimes to crayfish.
Feed the chickens with mealworms
Feeding chickens with mealworms will increase egg production by about 20%, and the meat quality of chickens is also better and grows faster. Mainly because the protein of mealworm is very high, and the calcium content is also relatively large, which can play a role in promoting the rapid prototyping of eggs. During the collective shelling period of crayfish, feeding yellow mealworms has certain benefits for crayfish shelling.
However, when breeding mealworms, we must pay attention to one point, that is, mealworms have the habit of cannibalism. When we breed, we should often observe whether there is a mutilated body of the yellow mealworm in the breeding pond, and if there is such a situation, it must be dealt with immediately, otherwise it is easy to reduce the production of the yellow mealworm.
Mealworm pupae are easily involved in cannibalism when cultured with larvae
Today's "Pastoral Xuanyue" is aimed at the cannibalism habit of yellow mealworms, for everyone to talk about: (1) Under what circumstances are yellow mealworms prone to cannibalism? (2) In what ways is the cannibalism of mealworms manifested? (3) How to prevent cannibalism of mealworms? (4) If the mealworm is cannibalistic, how can we remedy it?
<h1>First, in what cases are mealworms prone to cannibalism? </h1>
Friends who have bred mealworms should have a certain understanding of the situation of cannibalism of mealworms. That is when we breed mealworms, the most cannibalistic situation is because of the excessive density of breeding and the lack of food.
Once I did an experiment, in a breeding pot, do not feed food to breed yellow mealworms for a period of time, the result is that the pot of yellow mealworms are less and less. Finally, through careful observation, it was found that it was because the mealworm was killing each other.
<h1>Second, in what ways is the cannibalism of mealworms manifested? </h1>
Mealworms are omnivorous insects, not only eating a variety of vegetable leaves, grains, fruits, but also eating the carcasses of various insects, or even the same kind.
Mealworms kill each other, mainly in the elderly mealworm eating young mealworms, strong mealworms eating weak yellow mealworms, and the actionable yellow mealworms eating the inactive period of mealworms.
Pick the mealworms that have been killed by their own kind
1. Elderly mealworms eat young mealworms
The growth of mealworms is mainly the growth of peeling. Every time the yellow mealworm peels, its body can grow a little. The number of peels is mainly determined by the time of early childhood growth.
For mealworms with a short growth time in their infancy, the number of peelings is relatively small, and the minimum number of peeling is 6 times. Yellow mealworms with a long growth time in the juvenile stage also increase the number of peelings accordingly, reaching about 20 times.
The elderly yellow mealworms here eat young mealworms, mainly the yellow mealworms with a large number of peeling times, and the yellow mealworms with less peeling times. Older mealworms eat low-necked mealworms, which also manifest as adult mealworms eating larval yellow mealworms.
Yellow mealworm that has just shed its skin
2. Strong mealworms eat weak powderworms
Mealworms grow up slowly as the number of peels increases. However, mealworms also have times when they are sick, and when they get sick, their corresponding activity ability will be reduced, and it is easy to become the target of other mealworms.
Because of this property, some diseases of mealworm can easily spread within a single feeding pond.
3. Actionable mealworms eat inactive mealworms
Mealworm is divided into four stages: egg, larvae, pupae and adult, of which the yellow mealworm in the two stages of egg and pupae is unable to move.
Mealworms in both larval and adult stages prefer to attack the egg and pupal stages of mealworms. Mealworms in the egg and pupa stages, and mealworms in the larval and adult stages, are immovable food sources and do not have any ability to resist.
Mealworms in the larval stage
<h1>Third, how to prevent the cannibalism of mealworms</h1>
Mealworms are high-quality food for live organisms, and we breed yellow mealworms not only to ensure that they are alive, but also to ensure their production. Then when we breed yellow mealworms, we must try our best to prevent the cannibalism of yellow mealworms. According to the breeding experience, it is concluded that the prevention of cannibalism of mealworms is mainly to control the breeding density, release sufficient food, and isolate the breeding.
1. Control the density of culture
When we breed mealworms, it is best to control the thickness of the culture within 1.5 cm, and the best breeding density is within 1 cm. We cannot increase the density of culture just because we want to increase the production of aquaculture. The high density of farmed mealworms is most feared of a short-term lack of food sources. Forget to feed food or feed too little food, coupled with high-density farming, then the loss of a day may reach more than 10%.
Vegetable leaves feed mealworms
2. Feed plenty of food
With an adequate food source, mealworms also rarely kill each other. So we breed mealworms, and the best way to prevent cannibalism is to put enough food. The food range of mealworms is very wide, and the vegetable leaves and various fruit peels in our daily life can feed the yellow mealworms.
However, before feeding fruit peels or vegetable leaves to feed mealworms, it is best to wash them first, because vegetable leaves and fruit skins are prone to pesticide residues. Pesticides are originally designed to eliminate insects, so it is important to prevent the feeding of vegetable leaves and fruit peels with pesticide residues to mealworms.
3. Isolated breeding
There are two distinctions in the isolated culture of mealworms, one is to distinguish the size of the larvae by the body, and the other is to distinguish according to the growth stage.
The main tool we use to distinguish the size of mealworms is a sieve, which uses different sieves to sift out various sizes of mealworms and then breed them separately according to different sizes.
The other stage of isolation culture is the isolation of mealworms in the immovable stage and the yellow mealworms in the action stage. The pupae of mealworm are easier to isolate, because the pupae are relatively large, so when we separate the pupae and larvae, we can use a sieve to sift. When distinguishing between pupae and adult insects, we must use the characteristics of adult light-weariness to distinguish. Adult ponds are illuminated with strong light, and the adults look for shady places to hide.
For the isolation of adult mealworms from eggs, we can only be prepared at the beginning of adult breeding. There are currently two ways to isolate mealworm eggs from adults. The first is to lay white paper in the adult mealworm breeding pond and let the yellow mealworm lay eggs on the paper. Another method is to breed directly on a fixed screen, so that the mealworms can be separated when they lay eggs. However, the feces of the mealworm will also be separated with the eggs.
<h1>4. If mealworms are cannibalistic, how can we remedy them? </h1>
First of all, when we breed mealworms, we need to strengthen daily management, frequently inspect and inspect the mealworm breeding pond to see if there are any mutilated limbs of mealworms. If there is, then it means that our yellow mealworm farming has a situation of cannibalism.
Daily patrols and check for mealworms
When the cultured mealworms have cannibalism, we first increase the feeding of food to see if it is due to the lack of food and the problem of cannibalism.
If there is residual food in the breeding pond after increasing feeding, and there are still missing limbs of mealworms, then it may be that the breeding density and the polyculture of advanced and young mealworms are too serious. At this time, we must reduce the breeding density, and at the same time isolate the elderly mealworms from the young yellow mealworms.
Many mealworm breeding failures, the main reason is to ignore the cannibalism of yellow mealworms. Therefore, in the process of our cultivation of yellow mealworms, we must regularly inspect the yellow mealworm breeding ponds.