silkworms

[John33871]

well im going to start raising silkworms. i understand the food, but could someone help with the housing of the silkworms. should i house them like crickets, in a plastic tub? do i out anything else in the tub with the silkworms other than the food? also about buying eggs. is it hard to get them to hatch? ive done some googling but i found everything but the housing. any help would be very helpful. again thanks!

 

[wst0209a]

I house mine in a sterilite container right on the bottom with some food. I am only raising about 30 right now so this setup works fine for me. Others will put them in a similar container with a screen raised up off of the bottom to allow the frass to fall through. For that all you have to do is get screen material cut it the size of the box and raise it up about an inch or two. For the eggs I put them in one of those small craft boxes and placed a damp paper towel in with the eggs at room temperature and waited about 7 days for them to hatch. When they hatch you need to add food within 24 hours. They grow really fast when they are warm so make sure you have enough food to raise them. Are you going to breed them?

 

[John33871]

well breeding would be cheaper, or would it? anyways if it wasnt hard i would do it. and speaking about cost, im a college student on a budget, are silkworms pricey? lol dont have money all the time, and if i could breed them to save money id do it anyways the best i could. also do you have any pictures of your containers? why do you raise them up? what is frass? i saw a similar idea from a silkworm website, but they didnt say why just to and how, i didnt quite understand. if you havnt notice i am very new to silkworms and am trying to learn a lot very fast. thanks for your help wst0209a. i really need to start feeding my chameleon different foods, and have heard that silkworms are a very good feeder. thanks again man

 

[wst0209a]

Breeding is a lot cheaper because all you have to buy is the food. I am also in college so i know how you feel. This is not my setup but is similar. I have just one container not 4.

You can see the screen that they are on. It allows their frass (poop) to fall through and not build up on top. I raise mine up to breed and lay eggs. Silkworms are the easiest and my chameleons love them. If you don't have access to fresh mulberry leaves then you have to buy the artificial diet. I buy the powdered mix and mix it up myself as I need it.

 

[Will Hayward]

 

[karebear41486]

This is a good topic...I think more people should share their silkworm knowledge!! I have only ordered them once. I ordered 100 from coastal silkworms and received probably, if not more than, 150 worms. But i would like to learn more about breeding them if its not that hard. I just started a superworm breeding project...which seems pretty darn easy!

 

[wst0209a]

I like to put my silkworms in a small toilet paper roll to watch them cocoon. I usually put them in there when I notice them shrinking in size and then they will do their thing. Sometimes a few get by without me notice and they will just go to the top corner of my container and spin a cocoon there. When they are about to lay eggs what are some of the techniques for collecting them?

 

[John33871]

so when do they breed? in their adult form when they are moths? or when they are still worms?

 

[wst0209a]

They breed in the moth form. The will stay silkworms for about 30 days, spin a cocoon for about 2 days, moth emerges from cocoon after about 2 weeks to 20 days, and 2 days later the moth will breed and lay eggs.

 

[John33871]

wow very interesting. i think im going to do a little more research before i start breeding. thanks for all your help!

 

[Dave Weldon]

Howdy,

Here's a great article on silkworms:
http://www.chameleonnews.com/silkworms.html