Self starting, into the breach!

The time has come to start putting my efforts into my ideas.

Thus starts Obie's Acres.

My goal is to start a mealworm farm, grow and sell mealworms and create products from mealworms to offer the community at large.

The idea for the farming on a small scale started with an interest in becoming a beekeeper. However, due to location and lack of good contacts, I was not able to realize that dream yet. In researching, I managed to read up on several other small creepy crawlers that I became interested in the possibility of growing and raising.


Vermiculture

Red wiggler worms was my first research voyage in to the realm of small world farming.

For most people who have ever gone fishing or worked in the dirt for whatever reason, have seen these guys around. These earthworms are the key to great composting. Breaking down organic materials and leaving behind their castings (poop) which is a rich blend of nutrients and micro-organisms that give any plant a firm healthy boost.

Many gardeners enjoy the benefit of a good compost source, and the castings can be used to make worm tea or if the worm beds used for composting is raised the tea can be collected as it is created by diverting the liquid at the bottom of the bin to a collection bottle or pan. There are several videos on YouTube that show how to make a at home worm bin to be able tomake your own composting from table scraps.  GreenShortz DIY has a great video on a modified version of a flow through worm bin that you can make yourself.


Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL)

Another great composter is an insect larvae from the Black Soldier Fly.

When it comes to breaking down organics, the Black Soldier Fly's larvae is a pro. One meter square of BSFL can eat about 15 kgs of organic material a day! They eat so fast that micro-organisms do not have the time to start the composting process, therefore anything left over from the BSFL is great to throw into your compost pile or worm bin.
The fly itself is probably not very familiar to most people, even I has never seen one before. The fly itself is a non-pest insect that does NOT have any pathogen vectors that other insects have. When matured into an adult, they lack mouth parts, as such they do not search out food or liquids for their own sustinance. Their one goal is to mate and find a suitable location to deposit their eggs. Which makes starting a BSFL compost bin real interesting, one just has to set up a bin with a required amount of organics that will attract the adult flies. As seen in the picture, by suppling cardboard for the eggs to be laid in, each adult can deposit approximately 500 eggs per female.  When they mature from a grab to a pupae, the BSFL will self sort out of the composting material to look for a place to bury itself and change into a fly. This aspect of the BSFL makes it very easy to collect and then feed to any assortment of animals that enjoy bugs. IE: Chickens, fish, ducks, etc.


Mealworms

The larvae that the world is looking for and we didn't even know it.

Did you know that throughout the whole world, the United States is the one of the few places on Earth where bugs are not eaten as a supplement or staple? When I first looked into raising these wonder bugs, I didn't have a clue of what kind of market there is. What I found was a world where these guys are bred, raised, and used in culinary dishes around the world. In the U.S., mealworms are mostly a staple for reptiles, fish, and exotic pets such as sugar gliders and hedgehogs.

There is a good reason why small animals love these guys. Packed with protein and fiber, ounce for ounce, they are PACKED full of more protein than an average livestock animal, using much less space and has a negligible carbon footprint.  While my interests is to make these little guys available for anyone that is looking for a good source. I am going to be making sure that they are also organic grown and will experiment with different types of product ideas. Many that will be shared here as I go along.

So, there it is.

The start of something, not sure what, I am hoping that I can look back at this in a few years (hopefully) and find myself bemused with my simple start and appreciate how far I have come.