My 1st order with Mulberry Farms

[jadeaudio]

I just got my 1st order that I placed with Mulberry farms. I ordered 100 small silkies, 100 medium phoenix worms, a dozen hornworms, 100 superworms and some premade silk chow. I'm not very impressed with any of them. I spent $37 and $17 in shipping for Priority Mail when it was shipped in a medium flat rate box that costs $10. Plus I ordered it on a Thursday and it wasn't shipped out until Monday. All the worms are too small to feed any of my guys. Maybe my Mt Meru Jackson can eat them, but medium phoenix worms are tiny. Maybe a quarter inch in size, if that. I cannot imagine how small the small ones are and you cannot feed them anything, so they are not going to grow. The silkies is the main reason why I made the order because nobody else really sells them, so those are as expected until they get some chow in them and get bigger. I've ordered hornworms before from Tophat crickets and I think there chow is better because these guys are tiny and they have been in transit to me for 5 days and I have had them since Friday so they are at least 7 days old and they are still very tiny. The ones I got from Tophat doubled in size everyday. Like in 1 week when I've had them they were huge. Their chow is totally different color. I know a lot of you senior members probably buy from Mulberry and will probably be mad that I posted this, but I am just sharing my opinion and experience. If buying silkies I will probably still buy from them, but the rest of the worms I think I'm going elsewhere. Here is a PIC. The bigger container is from Top Hat and is 3 days newer than the smaller container from Mulberry. I also do not know if the food makes a difference on color, but the hornworms are different color.

 

[nightcrawler]

Phoenix worms are tiny no matter what size you buy them at. They literally get this big (-----)
The food does make the hornworms different colors. I believe if you take a blue one and put it in with your green ones it will turn green. The reason that they are tiny might be because of the colder temps that are happening in the fall weather.
They also only ship Mon-Wed, and it says it clearly when you order it so its your mistake not theirs.
And as far as priority mail goes, eh.
I get my stuff from Coastal silkworms (east cost), and I have them just ship it USPS priority mail, and its like 7-12 bucks.

 

[pssh]

And that's why research and reading is important. You would have known all of this before posting.

 

[tkilgour]

IMO phoenix worms are a total waste, they do not get near big enough for chameleons to want eat. There are a lot of threads here where people say they feed the phoenix worms to chams, but mine will not touch them, nor will the babies. The hornworms grow so fast you have to feed them quick or put in the fridge every other day. Usually, I buy only silkworms and butterworms from Mullberry Farms, hornworms from Greatlakes Hornworms, crickets from ghann's cricket farms, and b. dubias from a member here. Then I breed my own crickets and dubias so I have small feeders for babies. Hope this helps a little.

 

[VonSockthroat]

Gotta say my guy loves the Phoenix worms. Granted he's only 5-months old and they're probably too small for an adult, but he snags em out of my hand exactly like the treat they're supposed to be hah!

 

[warpdrive]

not to argue, and only my 2 cents worth...

when it comes to hornworms, I would prefer them to be far smaller then I would need then far bigger.
why?
well they grow so fast that in a few dys time they will not only be the size I need, but in another day or two, they will be too big.

let's take a look at both hornworms...for my 5 month old girl, the worms on the left would be too big for me to feed them off to her, but the ones on the right would be just fine.
not only that, but in a few days, I can use the leftovers on my big guy Splat and feed them off to him.
if I got something like the order on the left, then I only have food for my Splatness, and nothing for my little Laurie.

the good news is that if you only wanted large or extra large hornworms, then all you have to do is ask mulberry farms for the size you need and they will try hard to help you.

so someone looked at your order and guessed what size hornworms you would want by seeing not only "small" silkworms, but also an ultra small feeder like phoenixworms...I'm sorry they guessed wrong.
they would have given you large hornworms if they had any, as long as you asked for it.

personaly, I'm also not a big fan of pheonixworms, only because they are too small for everything but young or small chams.
but for such a case, they make an awsome feeder.

Harry

 

[Murrdox]

This thread's been super-informative so far. I've been pondering ordering some stuff from Mulberry, but the shipping costs are so high that it just hasn't been economical. I might explore some of the alternatives here.

 

[jadeaudio]

See I understand your points, but you guys haven't read the part that I have had both of these containers sitting on my shelf for the same amount of time in 70 degree room temperature and the Mulberry ones are growing very slow, while the Top hat ones have doubled in size each day. Which was my point of specifying that I believe the chow is better at Top Hat.

 

[Montium]

with horn worms I'd say that growing slow is a bonus. I always end up with some I can't feed because they get too big.