Why mealworms can drain your pocket

Mealworms are one of the best foods you can put out. Robins, blue tits, wrens, song thrushes, dunnocks and even the odd pied wagtail will abandon everything else when a dish of them appears, and in a cold snap or during the breeding season they are genuinely valuable — soft, protein-rich and easy for chicks to swallow. That is exactly why it is so irritating when most of an expensive handful ends up as a grey, soggy mush on the lawn.

The problem is almost never the mealworms themselves. It is the way they are offered. A large heap tipped into an open tray gets rained on, trampled by starlings, and forgotten by mid-afternoon. By the next morning it has gone slimy and mouldy, and the whole lot needs binning. A few small changes will cut the waste dramatically and mean you spend less for better results.

Little and often beats one big heap

Birds work to a routine, and a small, reliable supply gets cleared far more efficiently than a feast that sits there all day. Try these habits:

• Put out roughly what disappears within an hour or two — often 20 to 30 worms at a single station is plenty.
• Offer food at first light and again in the mid-afternoon, rather than one enormous pile at breakfast.
• Top up during very cold spells or when there are chicks in a nearby nest, but still in small amounts.
• Keep an eye on the weather. If heavy rain is forecast, skip the soaked worms and use dry ones in a covered feeder instead.

If you are finding leftovers after half an hour, you are overfeeding. Halve the portion and see how quickly it goes. That single adjustment usually saves more money than any other.

Use a proper dish or feeder

Live mealworms can climb smooth surfaces only with difficulty, so a shallow, smooth-sided dish is the classic solution. A ramekin, a small ceramic bowl, or a purpose-made mealworm dish with a raised lip and a drainage hole all work well. Keep it no deeper than about 3cm so birds can reach the contents easily.

For a tidier setup, a dedicated hanging mealworm feeder with a roof and sloped sides keeps the food dry and stops worms wandering off. Mount it on a pole or hang it from a bracket at around 1.5 to 2 metres, close enough to a hedge or shrub that birds can retreat into cover, but not so close that a cat can lie in wait. Avoid open ground trays: they collect damp, attract rats and magpies, and give you no control at all.

Keeping things dry in British weather

This is where most of the money is lost. Dried mealworms need rehydrating before they are useful, especially for chicks, but soaking more than you need is false economy. Soak a small quantity in warm water for 20 to 30 minutes, drain thoroughly, and serve it straight away. Never soak an entire bag in advance.

Once soaked, mealworms deteriorate fast. They turn spongy, then slimy, and then mouldy, and mouldy food can make birds ill. In wet weather:

• Use a feeder with a roof, or position the dish under a sheltered overhang.
• Tip out and rinse the dish at dusk, then refill fresh in the morning.
• Never leave soaked leftovers sitting overnight or through a rainy afternoon.
• In persistent rain, switch to dry mealworms in a covered feeder rather than soaked ones in the open.

Store, clean and rotate

Airtight containers keep dried mealworms fresh for months. Keep them cool, dark and dry, and freeze surplus in small portions if you have bought in bulk — this also prevents the pantry moth invasions that plague poorly sealed bags.

Live mealworms last well in the fridge at around 5 to 8°C, where they go dormant in a tub of bran or porridge oats. Take out only what you need, let it come up to room temperature for 20 minutes, and pick out any dead ones before serving. Wash dishes every day or two in hot soapy water and rinse them properly. If you feed in the same spot constantly, move the station occasionally to stop droppings and debris building up underneath.

Getting more from every purchase

Dried mealworms are cheaper per gram, keep for ages and cannot escape, so they suit most gardeners. Live worms are more tempting to fussy birds and provide moisture, which matters in dry spells. A mix of both is often the most economical approach.

One important caveat: mealworms are low in calcium relative to phosphorus, so a diet of nothing but worms can harm growing chicks. Offer crushed eggshell, cuttlefish bone or a calcium-rich grit alongside them, particularly between March and July. Mixing worms with suet or other foods also stretches them further. Keen gardeners can even keep a small mealworm colony in a ventilated tub of bran, feeding them vegetable peelings, to produce a few free handfuls a week. Whatever you choose, watch what actually gets eaten, adjust the amount, and your mealworm bill will fall while the birds still queue up.