Silkworm Poll

[bitterbeauty]

Okay so I want to try silkworms with my geckos but I am apprehensive.

I bought a bunch of phoenix worms before because everyone was raving about how awesome they were and then to my dismay my geckos turned up their nose to them. So now I have phoenix worms that I have been trying to feed off to my turtles (they are my bug disposal lol they eat anything!) and to my carnivorous plant collection.

So I guess my next question is how do silkworms go over with your leos?

Also, I would like to know if I should just buy the silkworms eggs or just get some actual worms? Which is easiest? Any hints tips and comments are welcome.

 

[Lena]

I will occasionally spring and buy my bearded dragon some silkworms, especially if she's under the weather.. They're nutritional wonders.

I've never tried offering one to my geckos, but be warned, large silkworms are LARGE. And small silkworms are TINY.

As far as feeders go they are extremely hard to keep and require daily maintenance. I suggest reading up on keeping them.

If you're still looking to buy them, I recommend going here:
coastalsilkworms.com

 

[snakegirl]

i breed silkworms. and worms are Much easier to start with, with eggs you need to have around 80 temp. if they temp drops for over a day the eggs seem to go in to a "cold state" after that happens am told you can heat them up and they should hatch.....( i have tried this) after my heat had gone out...and lost over 20,000 in silkworm eggs last year ) : And once they do hatch they are very hard to feed. since they need food yet as so small you don't want to smash them. i tend to cut small bits and lay it right before they hatch near them.

 

[LizMarie]

I'm going to buy some Silkworms in the new year but I was planning to get one of those silkworm pods. It's a little expensive but comes with food and like 20-50worms depending on size. I'm going to use this as my tester feeders if she likes the I'll get a bigger quantity if not I'm not stuck with 100worms.

Good Luck!

 

[snakegirl]

well if you dont feed them (not having a pod) for over 2 days they will start dieing off very fast. i never used a pod. since i had my own worms. but if you "get stuck" with them. dont feed them and they will die off pretty fast.

 

[rubym]

You also have to keep the baby silks clean or you can end up with fungus. I lost about 1500 baby silks to a fungus. I even thought i was keeping them really clean. I was doing it every other day. I guess I needed to do it everyday. Most of my geckos like the silks. I have a couple that won't eat any kind of worm ( crickets only).

 

[bitterbeauty]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! Silkies seem to be high matinence as far as feeders go from what I can tell. I think I will do like LizMarie is doing and just get a pod to see if my geckos will even eat them and then go from there.

 

[Palor]

I like to buy the small silkworms for my small reptiles and as they get bigger they get fed to bigger reptiles. Once that get too big I let turn into moths and feed the moths to my larger geckos.