I LOVE to see new products in the hobby. This looks amazing and hats off to the designers. With 3d printing as great as it is now, we should be seeing innovations all the time and this is amazing.
Sifting mealworms.... something I've spent countless hours reading about, talking about, watching videos about and experimenting with. I've hand-picked pupae before and spent over an hour doing it, 1 at a time. I feel like if you are able to sift at least 51% of the pupae out with very little time and energy, then it's worthwhile. You could probably use it twice in a row and recover more pupae, more dead-beetles and more dead-worms. I've used a diamond pattern wire basket I bought from Lowe's a long time ago, that seemed to work great... except for 1 major issue. Due to the design being holes, the pupae would often get wedged halfway through the holes. Also, the mealworms and beetles would cling to the wire basket and have to be pushed through or picked out. A slot design like in this video, may be a superior choice, since I think the worms won't have a tendency to grab onto wire holes. From my experience with mealworms, the pupae are not an exact size, they vary. Someone said they only keep the largest pupae and only keep the beetles that hatch with no deformities, like missing/mutated shell/wings. I don't know if that is worth the time and if your really selecting for favorable genetics or if it will always be random, because I would assume if it worked very well, then commercial breeders would probably do that and I don't know if they do. In my opinion, a great way to get the pupae separated, is to manually hand-pick all the pre-pupae mealworms who are in a "C" shape, which are much easier to handle and can then be left in a completely motionless environment to pupate and hatch into beetles. If you leave them in the bin to pupate, then each time they get messed with, they wiggle and that wiggling, is consuming energy. I assume if they use too much energy wiggling, they will not have the energy to hatch into a beetle or when they hatch, they may be starving. However, Time is Money. If you can do something that "works well enough" and takes a fraction of the time, then it's probably best to be doing something more valuable with your time, than picking up worms every day. On a massive commercial scale, like on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, where you have probably 1,000+ huge storage totes full of mealworms, hand picking "C" shaped mealworms would probably take enough time to bankrupt the company. Therefore, they use an electric shaking sifter that shakes back and forth with multiple levels of screen sizes.
"pupae are not an exact size, they vary." this is the biggest problem. Even in my simple test, we had about 30 pupae or so and still had 5 I believe still get through. There has to be a better way.
If I ever get back into raising mealworms (which i plan to never do again, but I likely will anyway), the first thing I would do, is buy those green bucket sifters, maybe even 2 sets and double layer them. I might buy that slotted sifter too. I've also built plenty of "automatic" sifting bins, where you simply create a sturdy frame under a bin and attach screen to it (such as cutting out square sections or attaching something like a large hole "hardware cloth" metal screen underneath the fine fabric screen, to support the weight. The benefit, is that most of the frass will get sifted out automatically. The biggest downside, is that a large amount of food particles ALSO get automatically sifted. I think that with a screen auto-sifting bin, you would want to find something with a SLIGHTLY tighter mesh pattern, than "mosquito-proof" fiberglass window screen that I used. I've also tried designing a place for the beetles to lay their eggs in, where they would fall down into a bin below, but they didn't seem to use it. My dream, would be able to automate EVERYTHING. Imagine where you have a self-dispensing food system, and a bucket that collects all the egg-free frass and a clean-up crew that eats all the dead mealworms and dead beetles. The dream design would also separate out the pupae by exploiting the physics of them moving around, while being a place that beetles and worms would want to avoid (maybe with light). Hatched beetles would want to escape and would end up in another to breed, but I would really have to take a lot of time to think this all through. If I was given unlimited funding to do so (like $40,000 a year), I bet I could come up with the MOST automated system possible, that would blow everyone's mind. The 3 reasons why I likely wouldn't do it without funding, is because 1. I have an allergy to the frass. 2. I don't have the space to do it (seriously). 3. I have to be earning money and add on the first 2 reasons and it's just impractical. I'm not going to ask anyone for money or attempt to get a grant or anything like that, because I think "good enough" is good enough and my current situation prohibits the practicality of raising mealworms. (even though someone is CURRENTLY trying to give me a pet lizard that would eat mealworms...) If I someone gives me a winning jackpot lottery ticket and I win millions of dollars, I'll probably do it, just out of my own personal passion of wanting to eliminate all the issues with mealworm raising, so that most people can do it.
I love this reply. Great information. I agree, for us it is probably 'good enough'. I've researched a few times what I believe to be the place to find out how to REALLY do mealworms and that is for human consumption. It seems they have things optimized! But again, for us, good is close.
one thing I learned is shake it the same direction and the slats ..I use the same set up and trays. I should have done a video on it also .... great video and thank you for sharing the information .. keep up the amazing work
Sorry for the ultra long comments. I just have so much to talk about with mealworm raising because I've never found a PERFECT solution to ALL the tasks. It's a challenge I want to accomplish, but I don't know if an automated mealworm bin is even possible. (beyond what other people have already done).
Yes, I think there are 6 sizes. Not sure off the top of my head but the first catches the adults/dead beetles and the second catches any smaller worms.
@@nostradomas1337 I am not sure where you are looking :) Try Amazon. amzn.to/3T9TdoP We use the larger to sort large and mediums. Then the smaller (.125) to sort out the smalls. Anything flowing through the .125 is frass or other debris.
I use a 3 bin system where the top has screen material in the bottom and the beetles and pupae in the top eggs drop to the second bin and then bottom bin is grow out ones! Anyone else do this?
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I LOVE to see new products in the hobby. This looks amazing and hats off to the designers.
With 3d printing as great as it is now, we should be seeing innovations all the time and this is amazing.
3D sifters, 3D feeder dishes... dang, maybe someday 3d isopods nd geckos!
@@SupremeGecko these may exist... much easier to keep.
Just seeing this now. Thanks for doing this reveal! Don’t forget to peel off the brown paper masking off the sifter - it should be clear!
I saw that after the video :) Nice catch!!!!!! Thanks. (I sent the link when I did this, right?)
Sifting mealworms.... something I've spent countless hours reading about, talking about, watching videos about and experimenting with.
I've hand-picked pupae before and spent over an hour doing it, 1 at a time.
I feel like if you are able to sift at least 51% of the pupae out with very little time and energy, then it's worthwhile.
You could probably use it twice in a row and recover more pupae, more dead-beetles and more dead-worms.
I've used a diamond pattern wire basket I bought from Lowe's a long time ago, that seemed to work great... except for 1 major issue.
Due to the design being holes, the pupae would often get wedged halfway through the holes.
Also, the mealworms and beetles would cling to the wire basket and have to be pushed through or picked out.
A slot design like in this video, may be a superior choice, since I think the worms won't have a tendency to grab onto wire holes.
From my experience with mealworms, the pupae are not an exact size, they vary.
Someone said they only keep the largest pupae and only keep the beetles that hatch with no deformities, like missing/mutated shell/wings.
I don't know if that is worth the time and if your really selecting for favorable genetics or if it will always be random, because I would assume if it worked very well, then commercial breeders would probably do that and I don't know if they do.
In my opinion, a great way to get the pupae separated, is to manually hand-pick all the pre-pupae mealworms who are in a "C" shape, which are much easier to handle and can then be left in a completely motionless environment to pupate and hatch into beetles.
If you leave them in the bin to pupate, then each time they get messed with, they wiggle and that wiggling, is consuming energy.
I assume if they use too much energy wiggling, they will not have the energy to hatch into a beetle or when they hatch, they may be starving.
However, Time is Money. If you can do something that "works well enough" and takes a fraction of the time, then it's probably best to be doing something more valuable with your time, than picking up worms every day.
On a massive commercial scale, like on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, where you have probably 1,000+ huge storage totes full of mealworms, hand picking "C" shaped mealworms would probably take enough time to bankrupt the company. Therefore, they use an electric shaking sifter that shakes back and forth with multiple levels of screen sizes.
"pupae are not an exact size, they vary." this is the biggest problem. Even in my simple test, we had about 30 pupae or so and still had 5 I believe still get through. There has to be a better way.
If I ever get back into raising mealworms (which i plan to never do again, but I likely will anyway), the first thing I would do, is buy those green bucket sifters, maybe even 2 sets and double layer them. I might buy that slotted sifter too.
I've also built plenty of "automatic" sifting bins, where you simply create a sturdy frame under a bin and attach screen to it (such as cutting out square sections or attaching something like a large hole "hardware cloth" metal screen underneath the fine fabric screen, to support the weight.
The benefit, is that most of the frass will get sifted out automatically.
The biggest downside, is that a large amount of food particles ALSO get automatically sifted.
I think that with a screen auto-sifting bin, you would want to find something with a SLIGHTLY tighter mesh pattern, than "mosquito-proof" fiberglass window screen that I used.
I've also tried designing a place for the beetles to lay their eggs in, where they would fall down into a bin below, but they didn't seem to use it.
My dream, would be able to automate EVERYTHING.
Imagine where you have a self-dispensing food system, and a bucket that collects all the egg-free frass and a clean-up crew that eats all the dead mealworms and dead beetles.
The dream design would also separate out the pupae by exploiting the physics of them moving around, while being a place that beetles and worms would want to avoid (maybe with light).
Hatched beetles would want to escape and would end up in another to breed, but I would really have to take a lot of time to think this all through.
If I was given unlimited funding to do so (like $40,000 a year), I bet I could come up with the MOST automated system possible, that would blow everyone's mind.
The 3 reasons why I likely wouldn't do it without funding, is because
1. I have an allergy to the frass.
2. I don't have the space to do it (seriously).
3. I have to be earning money and add on the first 2 reasons and it's just impractical.
I'm not going to ask anyone for money or attempt to get a grant or anything like that, because I think "good enough" is good enough and my current situation prohibits the practicality of raising mealworms. (even though someone is CURRENTLY trying to give me a pet lizard that would eat mealworms...)
If I someone gives me a winning jackpot lottery ticket and I win millions of dollars, I'll probably do it, just out of my own personal passion of wanting to eliminate all the issues with mealworm raising, so that most people can do it.
I love this reply. Great information. I agree, for us it is probably 'good enough'. I've researched a few times what I believe to be the place to find out how to REALLY do mealworms and that is for human consumption. It seems they have things optimized! But again, for us, good is close.
one thing I learned is shake it the same direction and the slats ..I use the same set up and trays. I should have done a video on it also .... great video and thank you for sharing the information .. keep up the amazing work
Thanks Andrew.
Just starting to get enclosures set up to breed these so this information is great to have. Thank you for taking the time to review this.
So glad it helped Victor
Thank you Wally. I used to raise meal worms and that would be a big help.
Right?!?! All the time picking the beetles and pupae out!
Hello great video information Wally
Thank you Moon
This will save people so much time it’s an Excellent Product for sure.
I think so.
Excellent Review Video Wally.
Thanks FDT
Wow that sifter is awesome
It does. I think it should keep 90-95%
Something I'll need to look in to if I start to breed meal worms again
You should start breeding them now, right? :)
I havr like 6 different roaches and now 4 ispods + all the reptiles
That is awesome Wally
Thanks Allynn
Great video!
Thank you!
Great information
Thank you.
Sorry for the ultra long comments.
I just have so much to talk about with mealworm raising because I've never found a PERFECT solution to ALL the tasks.
It's a challenge I want to accomplish, but I don't know if an automated mealworm bin is even possible. (beyond what other people have already done).
I agree, it HAS to be easier!
Green sifters. There are several mesh sizes available. Which two sizes do you use?
Yes, I think there are 6 sizes. Not sure off the top of my head but the first catches the adults/dead beetles and the second catches any smaller worms.
What size are the green sifters you have for your bucket? You say big and extra fine but what are the dimensions?
I picked up the entire pack and played with the sized. The 'big' was actually the medium size. The small was, the smallest.
Wally do you keep the frass until the eggs can hatch?
I don't. I usually breed by throwing the beetles into a new container with wheat and change them out every couple weeks.
What are the size of the green sifters? I see 8 different sizes
The largest is 1/4 and the smallest is .125
@@SupremeGecko So I don’t see the .125 do you mean the 1/2?
@@nostradomas1337 I am not sure where you are looking :) Try Amazon. amzn.to/3T9TdoP We use the larger to sort large and mediums. Then the smaller (.125) to sort out the smalls. Anything flowing through the .125 is frass or other debris.
I use a 3 bin system where the top has screen material in the bottom and the beetles and pupae in the top eggs drop to the second bin and then bottom bin is grow out ones! Anyone else do this?
I actually have the green sifting trays they sell on Amazon.
I use a colander to sift through meal worms….it doesn’t work as well as this system
I use to as well.
First
Nice job!