Hornworm Breeding Success

carbyville

Member
Well, I went for it and I am happy to say that I have successfully bred hornworms/hawk months!

I started with a typical hornworm pod and when my cham decided to stop eating for a week - a week where it was in the 90s here - I had all of these hornworms growing and nothing to do with them. So, I let them pupate and got them set up in an extra Reptibreeze.

By the time all the worms were used up, I had about 20 pupated worms. Last week, 5 of them hatched out and now today, I have over 100 eggs and about a dozen that have hatched and more that are starting to hatch.

There are still 14 pupated worms (7 girls 7 boys - perfect!) that should be hatching in the next week or two (hoping they haven't gone into diapause though with our weird and ever fluctuating weather), so I should have more hornworms than I'll know what to do with before long. I volunteer at a herp rescue/education center, so I'm going to share some of my hard work with the animals there. I'm sure they'll be more than appreciative :)
 
Well, I went for it and I am happy to say that I have successfully bred hornworms/hawk months!

I started with a typical hornworm pod and when my cham decided to stop eating for a week - a week where it was in the 90s here - I had all of these hornworms growing and nothing to do with them. So, I let them pupate and got them set up in an extra Reptibreeze.

By the time all the worms were used up, I had about 20 pupated worms. Last week, 5 of them hatched out and now today, I have over 100 eggs and about a dozen that have hatched and more that are starting to hatch.

There are still 14 pupated worms (7 girls 7 boys - perfect!) that should be hatching in the next week or two (hoping they haven't gone into diapause though with our weird and ever fluctuating weather), so I should have more hornworms than I'll know what to do with before long. I volunteer at a herp rescue/education center, so I'm going to share some of my hard work with the animals there. I'm sure they'll be more than appreciative :)

Thats awesome.... They're so expensive money saved
 
Pictures! I'm gonna have about 20 eclosing in 3 weeks I'll take pics every day but I'm not technologically inclined so if someone's interested I'll e-mail pics/vids once a day if you want to post em. I'm also doing silkworms if anyone wants to do the same for those. I'm likely gonna try a few pairs in a smaller cage aND the rest in my closet 2.5x3.5x7ft tall like I do most of the other sphinx species I breed, my next breeding a month or two down the road will be at least a 6 by 6 by 8ft tall to see if larger enclosures will be better or worse. One note for anyone breeding is that chow produces the healthiest worms. This past breeding I did one cup with hw chow, one with sw chow, and one group fed green toms, tom. Foliage, green pepper, potato leaves, and 3 different types of nightshade. Im not gonna post too much in a thread that isn't mine where people might miss it but needless to say 80% of my breeders were chosen from hw chow and only 1 from the natural foods. Anyone interested please pm your email.
 
Don't forget that they lay eggs no matter wgat, so if they have bred females still lay just as many eggs as they would if they do breed, granted they're healthy and live long enough, I made this mistake with manduca rustica, sold hundreds of infertile eggs thinking that they had to have mated in order to lay em, it was my first sphinx species to breed so I learned quickly from it, luckily I did end up getting enough fertile eggs so cleaning up the mess only meant having to re-ship fertiles ones, but it still can damage a reputation even if you do it on accident. Of course if you a re entry selling them it won't matter but it's a good thing to keep in mind.
 
I'll definitely take some pictures in a little bit. I'm going to change out the paper towels after I'm done working. It's a disaster, haha. Had a bunch more eggs to pluck out of the cage this morning. I've lost count of how many there are now. Unfortunately, I did lose one moth, so I'm down to four now.

Just a question: Is there any way to tell if an egg is fertile or not? I'm not going to sell eggs, and I'll only start giving them out once they've hatched (and I do only give them the hornworm chow, thanks for that tip!), but it's something to know, at least. Thanks for all the tips!
 
I ordered from rainbow mealworms and found that my cham, like many others, love them! My cham doesn't seem to eat much but he never turns down a horn worm. How difficult is it to breed hornworms? Id be very interested in starting. That is, after im done hatching out and feeding silkworms. I've been trying to hatch and grow them from eggs since that was the cheaper route... It's been over a month and I think it's probably gonna be a couple more weeks before they are large enough to feed to my guy.
 
The infertile eggs stay dark green or shrivel, usually both. You will never be able to tell accurately without comparing so after they hatch take a good look at the bad ones and you'll learn how to tell soon enough. The only real thing you'd have to worry about is when all are infertile as there's never 100% fertility rate.
 
I ordered from rainbow mealworms and found that my cham, like many others, love them! My cham doesn't seem to eat much but he never turns down a horn worm. How difficult is it to breed hornworms? Id be very interested in starting. That is, after im done hatching out and feeding silkworms. I've been trying to hatch and grow them from eggs since that was the cheaper route... It's been over a month and I think it's probably gonna be a couple more weeks before they are large enough to feed to my guy.
Theyre not hard to breed at all, but youll likely not do so good the first time. The bigger the cage you have the higher success rate youll have. The best way to grow silkworms quickly is high temps and leaves but 80 degrees will get them growing quicker even on chow. If you get eggs with ice you can keep em in the fridge a stagger them by taking out a few every few days so you always have large feeders. Hornworms can be a pain, imo silkworms kind of make hornworms obselete because they are easy clean and have better nutrient content. Hornworms don't do so well outside of cups, but at the same time, the cups quickly overcrowded and there's always nipped tails legs and feet that can get infected.
 
I have so many hornworms hatching today! Every time I look into the cup there's at least another 5 that have hatched. I move them into one of the cups with food, rinse and repeat. It's amazing.

I'm sadly down to one moth. The other two bit the dust a few days ago. Just waiting on more to make their appearance. There's one especially wiggly cocoon that I think might be getting ready to come out, I guess time will tell.

At the same time, I'm also trying to hatch silkworm eggs. I have no experience with this, so it should be interesting to see how it goes. The chow is all ready for them, but they're still just eggs lol.
 
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