This definitely works, but I never could be bothered due to the fact that eggs were almost always available and not very expensive. They are so easy to raise that it is a no-brainer if your chameleon enjoys them
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Anyone know a place with silk worms in stock
- Thread starter Bmjo
- Start date
This definitely works, but I never could be bothered due to the fact that eggs were almost always available and not very expensive. They are so easy to raise that it is a no-brainer if your chameleon enjoys them
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Matt Vanilla Gorilla
Chameleon Enthusiast
Through the years I have been working at breeding my silkworms to be more disease resistant! I don't wash/sanitize my hands before I handle them and I add new blood once a year. I am glad that I started doing that! My silk worms are so tough now!
Andee
Chameleon Enthusiast
That's kind of how I started with my hybrids Matt, you introduce germs, let it pick off the weak, and breed in the healthy, always add new blood or weakness begins again. And then I added the african strain to cause a tolerance to massive temp changes and just general hardiness. It's insane how moldable this species is I love it.
Matt Vanilla Gorilla
Chameleon Enthusiast
I too have added the South African strain. I grew up in South Africa and kept Silkworms as pets. Growig up as a grimy farm boy I can not imagine what bugs I might have had on my hands! Yet I hardly lost a worm. I think that is why the South African strain is so strong. Kids have kept them as pets all these years. And we all know how kids forget to feed, put the worms in direct sun, leave them in too cold a place and forget to wash their hands! No wonder they became that resilient!
Andee
Chameleon Enthusiast
Well they are also a wild species. They haven't been adjusted so it's how they should be. Keeping an inbred species from china isn't want we want as a feeder. In the end it becomes a massive issue since there is no longer the wild species that bombyx mori originally came from. There is no way to get wild and healthy genes back into the chinese silks unless you cross breed them. I may need your assistance in a bit. I am dealing with low production rates in my hybrids as I have explained and am trying to get my white ready to breed with my hybrids when they time comes. But I have very few hybrid eggs left, so if you have any of your excess south african strain I would be interested if I could pm you? I know right now you are dealing with babies, I wouldn't need them for several months. But it's just irritating. lol
Bmjo
Established Member
Do silkworm eggs need to be kept at a constant temp? I held off on my order because idk whether to get live worms or eggs, I don’t want something that’s to hard to keep up
Bmjo
Established Member
Do all of them hatch? Like are there some that don’t hatch, sorry for all the questions i just don’t want to waste money
Andee
Chameleon Enthusiast
You usually get a hatch rate of minimum 80% in my experience, sometimes 95%-100%. But your first time raising silks you are gonna waste money likely lol. They are a learning curve and a lot of us probably lost at least a handful of our first few colonies minimum. I think my first colony originally I lost like half of my first 200.
