Dylan James

Recently I've been hearing some mouse noise coming from under my house, got some ideas from Permies but procrastinated a little bit. Woke up to hearing one in the house, found a hole chewed into my dog's food container. On the outside of my house I have a few open containers to catch rain water. I closed the hole of the food container and poured the entire thing into the rain tub, expecting the mouse to fall out and drown. There was no mouse. I figured I'd leave the moist dog food out and see what that catches. I moved a nearby lawn chair close to it so mice can jump in. A few days later I caught my first mouse.

Can you explain your quail compost operation for me? I figured it would require too much time/space/labor but you make it seem easy.

Update #1

Whe moving my quail coop to clean the droppings that escape the enclosure, I discovered that unbeknownst to me, I had already started the experiment. These droppings contained at least two of the three stages of the mealworm lifespan (Beetle and worm). Thanks to a recent failure of a past project, I had acquired a bin to begin a controlled experiment.

Side note: I had learned that red wigglers tend to expand their population when given bran/oats. So of course when I sifted my mealworms, I placed the old oats into the bin. It only took a few weeks for it to convert into a mealworm colony.

What an amazing display! I have a very similar situation in Florida. I have been raising mealworms on my porch to feed the quail, and I've been testing to see if the mealworms can solely survive on the quail manure. I have red wigglers also, but haven't gotten that system down yet.

I source all of my pots freely at Publix, a local grocery store chain. Most grocery stores order their flowers in buckets, and will have some readily available if you ask. Mothers day and valentines day are great opportunities to stock up. Hope this helps!

In the coming months I will be experimenting with mealworms on a quail manure bedding. Once my mealworm population has grown to where I can spare some, I will be throwing them into a spare 10 gallon fish tank along with quail manure bedding. I will also add a thick layer of woodchip mulch to the top to weaken any odor.

If the experiment proves to be successful, it could possibly eliminate/reduce the need for buying/sourcing bedding for the mealworms.

In the meantime I welcome any advice or speculations on the experiment. I have found very little, but somewhat promising, results across the internet.

Also, I welcome any alternative uses there may be to upcycle a 10 gallon fish tank.