Bird Food

Or a staple diet if you're a 'Celebrity Get Me Out of Here' which, I've never watched but, I'm led to believe that bugs come first on their menu.

My mealworms arrived last week. I buy them in for the birds in rather large quantities. This time it was half a kilo. That's a lot of meal worms if they get out but so much cheaper than buying them in little pots! Fortunately they can't climb the sides of their home. I keep them alive in bran and give them slices of fruit or vegetables every day so they get moisture and just ignore them until it's time to go onto the bird table. Most birds adore them and they are nutritious. I also give them to the newts in the pond. They love them! Mealworms are odourless but I do have to be cleaned out from time to time, but with patience I shouldn't have to buy any more until well into next year. I still have some from last year!

Neither worms or caterpillars, Mealworms are the larvae of a species of Darkling Beetle, Tenebrio Molitor. Their life cycle is quite rapid and they are often used in schools to demonstrate holometabolism, in other words, complete metamorphism. For the time being they will grow and shed their skin regularly but, within days I expect some to start to pupate. Roughly a month later they will undergo their 4th transformation and become small flightless beetles.

Left to their own devices, the beetles will lay thousands of eggs which are barely visible to the naked eye and the equally small larvae hatch within days. The cycle begins again!

They are quite clever and in a warm environment they may complete their transformation much faster, or slow it down to an almost stop if it's cold. When raised commercially they are administered hormones in their food which keeps them in the larval stage for much longer which forces them to grow abnormally large.

I'll blip these as they go through their life cycle.