Anyone here keep silkworms

[Pyro]

Starting a colony. Just wanted to get any pointers you might have.

 

[nepenthes_ak]

I don't know but thats really cool, what do you plan on doing w/ the silk?

 

[Pyro]

I'm not raising for silk I am raising to feed them to my animals.

 

[Finch]

Nope, but we have white mulberry aplenty here. It is quite the weed. Is it like that where you live? Where do you get the food?

 

[Not a Number]

I saw on a show on PBS ages ago they use silkworm droppings to feed carp in China. The carp they pulled out during the show had to have been a least 1 meter long!

Now eat your silkworm doodoo so you can grow up big and strong...

 

[Pyro]

Hey Finch,

I am sure there are mulberry here but I don't know of any around my place. I'll be feeding them silkworm chow that you get as a powder and then mix with water and microwave to make a paste. 1kg dry makes ~4kg wet so the 2kg pack should last me a good long time. And I can always try finding mulberry bushes later if I feel the need to switch over.

 

[elgecko]

I hope to have my set up for my lizards changed around soon.
I was planning on starting a culture or 2 of them to feed to my Leopard Geckos. I think I have some good info saved on my computer at home on raising them. I'll have to check it out then.

 

[Pyro]

Cool, thanks Steve, I appreciate it. I have a pretty good idea based on what I was told and have scrounged up on the net but a lot of it sounds like it was all cut and paste from the same source so further input is always helpful

 

[I_Pereira]

I had some when I was younger and they are quite easy to grow (talking about Bombix mori right?). I had them for 2 years and in the 2nd year I was patient enough to count them 1 by 1 as they were born from eggs and put them to another box

Just to have and ideia of how your colony may increase, from 17 worms in the 1st year (don't remember how many males and females though) I counted nearly 4500 births in the next year from the eggs they layed

There were about 100 growths per day.
What animals will they be fed?

 

[Pyro]

I will be using them to feed my Phyllomedusa sauvagei (waxy tree frogs to those not familiar with the latin). And I might try feeding some of the big blokes to my snake if he'll take them. If he won't then they will go to a friend who has a very large assortment of exotic frogs.

 

[ktulu]

Keep them clean and well fed and they will do quite well. They grow fast so they will quickly outsize your animal if they are already growing. I think the smallest size I could order would be too large to feed my leopard gecko in just over a week. She wouldnt eat crickets, wax worms, or mealworms for a good 2 weeks after I stopped keeping them, mainly because of time concerns (If you dont feed them every day when larger and twice a day when small they die, also if they arnt kept quite clean they tend to die off)

 

[elgecko]

Here's the article.

http://www.chameleonnews.com/silkworms.html

 

[nepenthes_ak]

I think roaches would make a good feeder too, they are quite, don't smell and allot of the feeder species don't fly, let a lone climb too well. Feeders wont get out and infest you're house either unlike the German or American cockroaches we find.

But You are the one getting them so you know what you are looking for in a feeder, hope all works well, interesting artical elgecko, (now knowing about the calcium intake i assume this is why you wish to use Silk worms)

 

[Pyro]

ktult,

From what I have read once they reach 5cm they can be held at that stage for 7-10 days if you reduce feeding and temps. Easy enough for me since I have a surplus of small tanks to begin with. I also plan on doing a staggered hatching so I should have many sizes available at all times once I get rolling.

Gecko,

Thanks for the link, lots of good stuff there that I had not seen. It definitly adds to what I had.

NepAK,

I am not fond of roaches and my wifeHATES them. Plus they are a little too fast for the sauvagei unless I hand feed. And, as I said above, I am not fond of roaches so daily holding them really does not appeal to me in the slightest.

The calcium factor is not all that important to me (would have been great for the fat-tails I owned years ago though). I was just looking for something that is easy to keep, quiet and does not smell.

 

[rattler]

come on Pyro, B. dubia's arent very fast and are easy to work with. discoids are more than a bit spastic though thinking about keeping them from breeding and letting them die of old age :grin: heck my wifes even forgotten about them for the most part since they dont smell of make noise..........she is kinda concerned that they are eating a healthier diet than me though with all their vegies and fruits

 

[Pyro]

come on Pyro, B. dubia's arent very fast and are easy to work with.

You've never met a sauvagei have you. I know they are sometimes called monkey frogs because of their motion but a more apt name would be sloth frogs. I think the only reason the get enough crickets is because for some strange reason the crickets seem suicidal and walk right upto the frogs

 

[rattler]

hmmmmmmmmmm...........good point, still i would rather hand feed the roaches than keep crickets in the house........tried hand feeding them to the beardy and bout lost a finger, desided he could just catch his own after that

 

[Pyro]

If my only choice were crix and roaches then maybe I would consider the roaches because I too would not raise crix. Nasty smelly loud creatures.

But the silkworms are a better option for me since they are not ugly and the wife does not mind them.

hmmmmmmmmmm...........good point, still i would rather hand feed the roaches than keep crickets in the house........

 

[Joseph Clemens]

Silkworm Memories

I did it back in grade school. The memory of that experience is a good one, so much that I've been contemplating raising them again, since then. I have just been shopping on ebay for White Mulberry seeds with plans to grow some trees, then get some silkworm eggs to start a colony myself.

 

[rattler]

was the waxies the reason you wanted isopods? if so yah might want to skip the idea as the lil buggers are much quicker and like to hide more than the dubia's, sometimes my darts have a hard time running them down.......been putting them in the fridge for a bit to slow the buggers down and give the darts half a chance...........