Hornworm moths and their eggs....?

[arizona28613]

I have been doing a project with hornworms to see if I could produce my own without having to pay $2.50 each and having to deal with shipping. So I have 8 that pupated about the same time but only 3 have “hatched” so far & they’re doing great. I woke up to eggs so I’m hunting them down, I’ve counted over 100 so far. Can the female lay eggs without breeding? Since I only have 3 I didn’t know if maybe I didn’t get a male and female. Also will I have a worm problem due to the few eggs that I can’t find and that have fell while I was trying to pick them up? Will be moving out of rental in the next month and don’t want to start a problem for other people to deal with... thanks in advance, I know Mavi is gonna love these worms!

 

[Spyro]

The female moth can lay non-fertile eggs without breeding. They'll be the same color as fertile ones, but fertile ones will turn from light green to yellow as the worm embryo develops.

 

[arizona28613]

Thank you! We shall see what happens, hopefully they are fertile.

 

[BECHARD4]

If temps are in the 80’s the eggs will hatch within a week.
Last summer we had temps outside of 110 degrees and the eggs were hatching within 24 hours. Not recommend doing that, but was surprised they hatched with temps so hot.

 

[arizona28613]

Wow that is crazy! I have them at about 80-83 and they’re looking to turn lighter in color so hopefully we will have worms. Lol

 

[arizona28613]

WE HAVE WORM BABIES!

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

Congratulations!

 

[arizona28613]

I couldn’t find ANY deli cups big enough so I had to order some, I used 6 oz cups and made those up with 15-20 eggs in each... it’s working just as good, they’re all hatched but a couple. I have 10 cups of worms and one big delicup I had left from my last batch.

 

[arizona28613]

Excuse my mother’s table of papers, she loves to stack papers any where she can lol

 

[arizona28613]

Congratulations!

Thank you sir, I found some left over powdered food I had & mixed that up.

 

[The Wild One]

Kinda a stupid question, but i have 2 horn worms that are to big for my 4 month old to eat. Should i wait until they (hopefully) turn into moths? Do they even turn into moths?

 

[arizona28613]

You can but it would be a small chance the two you have will be both a male and female, which I had the same problem only 3 turned to moths at that time... but somehow I was lucky enough and you could be too, I would give it a try. I’ve got about 200 babies now.

 

[arizona28613]

These are them today

 

[The Wild One]

do you know what the stuff on the bottom is?

 

[arizona28613]

I’ve got 15 pods of about 15 worms in each.

 

[arizona28613]

What do you mean? What stuff?

 

[The Wild One]

the like jelly/clay brown lookin stuff at the bottom

 

[The Wild One]

or is that the top?

 

[arizona28613]

That’s the food for them