hornworms

[joemacchirella]

so i finally ordered some hornworms about 50 small ones for my nosy be i plan on feeding some off and trying to breed some any advice i already have a homemade hornworm chow recipe any advice i plan on using one of my chameleon cages thats not in use i could use all the advice you guys/gals are willing to share

 

[Swayne8998]

so i finally ordered some hornworms about 50 small ones for my nosy be i plan on feeding some off and trying to breed some any advice i already have a homemade hornworm chow recipe any advice i plan on using one of my chameleon cages thats not in use i could use all the advice you guys/gals are willing to share

I am not a breeder, but I would certainly like to and I've done a little research on this. I believe you need a tomato plant for the hornworms to lay their eggs in, but you must take out the plant for a few days before feeding any off... What's in your recipe? Oh and good luck

 

[joemacchirella]

I am not a breeder, but I would certainly like to and I've done a little research on this. I believe you need a tomato plant for the hornworms to lay their eggs in, but you must take out the plant for a few days before feeding any off... What's in your recipe? Oh and good luck

A Homemade Recipe for Manduca Diet from UW-Madison

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.

 

[JohnnyD]

Great info Joe, the only thing I would question is the "multivitamin". I would assume that these differ in their composition from brand to brand. Some being more suited for chameleons to ingest than others.

 

[joemacchirella]

thanks and i was wondering that myself but one of my friends on here gave me that recipe he uses it for his hornworms