Buying feeders vs Raising them

[summoner12]

Yeah, supers are pretty easy...... once they get going. Its just a bit time consuming at first before you get baby worms.

I buy all my feeders from Mulberry. They are semi "local" and I have a good rapport with them.

I offer my chams dubia, silkworms, hornworms, butterworms, superworms and crickets. If I have silk or hornworm moths I feed those off too. Recently Dave Weldon gave me some of his silkworm moths and they were gobbled up VERY fast by the chams who I offered them to.

I say raise your own if you will consume large amounts of feeders and need to stay on a budget. BUT... this is only good if you have the time and resources to do so. Raising silkworms will require a 'clean room' or.. clean area and thermal controlled environment. Silkworms are sensitive to disease and will die off fast if infected with something.

Hornworms need a place to burrow in order to cocoon and then once the moth has hatched will need food and a place for flight in order to mate. then they need somewhere to lay the eggs. The issue with HWs is that the eggs must be used immediately. HW eggs can not be stored like silkworm eggs.

 

[sandrachameleon]

How many people buy their feeders versus raising their own. What factors do you consider when making that decision? The reason I ask is that we have a Mellers and a veiled, and will be picking up a third chameleon (still undecided which kind) at the first part of the year. We want to start offering feeders other than crickets, and it seems that its hard to find med-large silkworms and hornworms on a consistent basis (on the east coast) in the quantity that we need. We've done the reading in regards to raising and keeping them and its no big problem for us, we also have two daughters that love helping with this kind of stuff to take some of the work load.
So in the end, we just wanted to get people's opinions on the subject as we weighed our options. Thanks!

I breed about 80% of the bugs I use, catch wild about 5% and buy the rest. I prefer to breed my own because:
1 - its cheaper
2-I can rely on always having a variety of bugs available (not dependant on stores, or worried about shipping/weather delays from online vendors)
3 - I know exactly what the bugs have been eating, that they've been housed correctly and cleanly

Bugs to breed for yourself without much trouble include various roaches (I like turkistan, hissing, and dubia); superworms; terrestrial isopods (aka rollie pollie/ wood sow/ pill bug); stick insects; silkworms....

 

[Digby Rigby]

Ditch the crix and mealworms

To Fearaffect ditch the crix and supers and do the roach and silkworms. Snails are also very good and chameleons love them along with the green banana roach for finicky eaters. As far as the dubia if you figure they produce 20 babies a month as adults and 50% of what you get will be males it makes it easier to figure out.

Digby Rigby [email protected]