Breeding hornworms!

chamalam

Member
I plan to breed hornworms and im wondering if the moths will lay on any sort of plant? I dont have a tomato plant but i do have a spare umbrella plant so i was wondering if that could work?
 
You do not want to have them anywhere near a tomato plant. When they ingest these they then become toxic for the chameleon because tomato plants are in the nightshade family.

Google it and do a search on the forum. They produce a ton of eggs and they hatch out really fast. You need hornworm food for them. You need a butterfly cage. And the moths drink nectar.
 
yeah! well i have worms right now and i was saving some for feeding and some for breeding and the tomato plant was just for the moths to lay eggs on if i did get one! my main question is if the moths will lay eggs on any other plants beside tomato plants!
 
also this is totally unrelated but could you gutload crickets corn/corn husk? I have left over raw corn and i was wondering if that would be safe to gutload crickets, roaches, worms, such
 
Here are the recommended gut load items.

chameleon-gutload.jpg
 
My moths just laid eggs yesterday. I'm using tomato plants. the moths only eat sugar water and the ass long as you harvest before the egg hatch and start eating I think you are golden.

The moths lay eggs on everything...the cage, the feeder, the dirt they came out of, and the plants. I would guess other plants may work because they laid on so many surfaces BUT the majority of the eggs were on the tomato plant. I would research it more before deciding other plants could be effective or just experiment with the mindset you may not get very many eggs. My hunch is they lay the eggs on plants in the Solanaceae family because that's what they eat and they want the babies to have a high chance of survival. Other plants may result in less productive lays...but I'm shooting from the hip with that.
 
What kind of plants are in the Solanceae family?

Plants like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant…they are all nightshade plants. I research that they will all eat mulberry and sweet potatoes leaves which are a different family than regular potatoes (they are night shades). I’m experimenting with growing them up on both as a food source. Mulberry is definitely reptile safe, I think sweet potatoes leaves are as well.
 
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