baby hornworm food

[christyo2o2]

hey guys, long story short, got hornworms, 2 caccooned, turned into moth, laid eggs.

A few days later the eggs have hatched and i dont have any hornworm food for them. I know large hornworms eat celery and other plants but what is the best to feed the freshly hatched (this morning) hornworms being I dont have the store bought mix.

Please let me know.

 

[Brad Ramsey]

You need lele to answer this question.

-Brad

 

[dectr6]

Hey Christy, I take it you don't want to purchase the wetfood from mulberry?

 

[Chase]

hey guys, long story short, got hornworms, 2 caccooned, turned into moth, laid eggs.

A few days later the eggs have hatched and i dont have any hornworm food for them. I know large hornworms eat celery and other plants but what is the best to feed the freshly hatched (this morning) hornworms being I dont have the store bought mix.

Please let me know.

www.tkodragons.com

They sell Hornworm food.

 

[dectr6]

Hey Christy, I take it you don't want to purchase the wetfood from mulberry?

Sorry Christy, I didn't see the part where you were out of mix. I take it you need something for the next few days? I've fed mine kale when they where about half an inch, but not sure the newborns can eat this. David

 

[christyo2o2]

yah these guys are like microscopic right now. i read that they need to eat right away or they can die. I put some celery into their lil cage and im hoping they can eat it. I figure, in wild they eat the same plants their bigger moms and dads eat.

 

[dectr6]

Maybe use a blender and make a paste out of celery and other veggies

 

[christyo2o2]

paste huh? what would a paste do better?

 

[dectr6]

If you have the proper food, are hornworms easy to raise? My cham loves them but it's so hard to time them. They get big so quick and are pricey if you want to use them for several chams. David

 

[dectr6]

Maybe they could eat it better? The paste I mean.

 

[Jerambis]

The thing with hornworms is their diet is tomatoe/tobacco plants, which also happen to be toxic to our chameleon. Smashed veggies and stuff will give them something to eat (smashing them is easier for them to chew since their jaws are not very strong yet), but they will eventually need chow if you want them to survive. Order some, or better yet, go buy a container of hornworms with premade chow and use that until your order comes.

 

[dectr6]

She's trying to find something to use right now. She's out of the mix and just had a batch hatch.

 

[christyo2o2]

ill blend up some paste and see if they are attracted to it. Im just scared they they r so small they may get stuck in it.

 

[christyo2o2]

The thing with hornworms is their diet is tomatoe/tobacco plants, which also happen to be toxic to our chameleon. Smashed veggies and stuff will give them something to eat (smashing them is easier for them to chew since their jaws are not very strong yet), but they will eventually need chow if you want them to survive. Order some, or better yet, go buy a container of hornworms with premade chow and use that until your order comes.

everything we get with exception of crickets are ordered. It takes a week to get anything in the mail here. Our post office is good like that. They put our worms and packages on a shelf and forget about it. They have killed 1 order of worms and nearly killed a 2nd by doing this. They refuse to ship to my house, and i dont know when the order gets to the post office until i call and hound them about it. Then they say "oh yah its here. been here a week" I am not working right now, and we have no gotten any letters. They just refuse to move it 5 miles from the post office.

anywase, yah. Gotta order all worm stuff and these babies will be dead by the time the mix comes in.

 

[Chase]

If you have the proper food, are hornworms easy to raise? My cham loves them but it's so hard to time them. They get big so quick and are pricey if you want to use them for several chams. David

They aren't hard to time if you don't have many. How many do you have? Also, www.tkodragons.com sells food and you can buy it dry or cooked.

 

[christyo2o2]

They aren't hard to time if you don't have many. How many do you have? Also, www.tkodragons.com sells food and you can buy it dry or cooked.

yah there are millions of places to buy food. thats not in question.

my question is what would they eat when you dont have that food.

 

[lele]

homemade recipe

Christy - you can certainly start them on tomato plants (if you live in a warm area where you have access to some) to get them started while you are waiting for chow. It is toxic but if you switch them to chow and don;t feed them off for about a week to get any plant through their system all should be fine. You can try some tender, young celery leaves. I guess some people here have tried it short term, I never have.

Here is a homemade recipe from UW-Madison. I have never made it but if you do not have access to tomato plants it might be worth a shot:

A Homemade Recipe for Manduca Diet

We have developed a diet composed of ingredients that are readily available in a large supermarket. Diet preparation requires only a kitchen blender and a microwave oven. The finished diet, having the consistency of tofu, can be easily sliced into any shape or size and the quality of the diet can be modified by adding or subtracting various chemical components.

1 cup (100 g) of non-toasted wheat germ (Bobs Red Mill, Milwaukie, OR)
1/3 cup (25 g) of nonfat dry milk (Sanalac, Fullerton, CA)
4 tablespoons of agar (generic)
1 teaspoon pure raw linseed oil (nonboiled, Sunnyside Corp., Wheeling IL)
1/2 tablespoon nutritional flake yeast (generic)
1 vitamin C tablet (1000 mg) (generic)
2 vitamin B tablets (generic)
2 multivitamin tablets (generic)
1 tablespoon of table sugar (generic)
2 1/2 cups water

1. Place vitamin tablets in blender and reduce to a powder. To this powder, add the wheat germ, powdered milk, and sugar and blend until the dry components are well-mixed.
2. Remove the dry mix from the blender and add 2.5 cups of boiling water. While mixing at low speed, add the agar. Be careful to replace the lid on the blender before turning it on. Blend for one minute and then add the dry mix and continue to mix.
3. Add the linseed oil and increase blender speed. You may need to manually blend the diet while the blender is running. The diet gets rather viscous at this point.
4. After blending for about 5 minutes, add the nutritional yeast flakes and continue blending for another minute. Components in the yeast are heat labile, thus, yeast is added as late as possible.
5. Once the diet is thoroughly mixed, pour it into a plastic tray that has a sealable airtight lid. The diet will solidify and remain usable for about 7 to 10 days if kept refrigerated.

 

[Chase]

DO NOT PUT THEM ON TOMATO PLANTS!!!!!!! This will kill your chameleon because of the toxins in the leafs of the Tomato Plants. It will be very sad if your chameleons die.

 

[lbesok]

I could suggest Mulberry leaves, also dependent on availability/climate, they would probably have to be ground up as well.

 

[dectr6]

DO NOT PUT THEM ON TOMATO PLANTS!!!!!!! This will kill your chameleon because of the toxins in the leafs of the Tomato Plants. It will be very sad if your chameleons die.

She's talking about feeding them tomato plants for the first few days until she can get her regular mix then feed them on that for awhile before feeding them to her chams. That way the tomato plants will be out of their system. BTW...How did the paste work out? Did they get stuck in it and drown? I don't know how small newly hatched are but the ones I get from mulberry are extremely small and easy to kill. In my last order from mulberry, most of them fell in between the food mix and the side of the container during shipment and were smashed. I only got 6 healthy ones in one of my containers and 7 in the other. I ordered one of the small size and one of the medium size. I'm curious to see how your develop as I may try to raise a few. David