Silkworm vs Dubia roach

[gothra]

Which do you think will work better as staple? Could it be possible that silkworms are less fattening than dubias? I think my geckos are a bit too fat, and I want to feed them a less fattening food (I'd already ditched my mealworm colony and will also throw away most of my supers).

I have a breeding colony of dubias, they are doing extremely well and breeding like crazy. However, these dubias aren't as clean as I hope, I think I'm seeing some kind of parasitic oocyst when I smear the roach poop. So, I'm seriously thinking of cutting the colony down to ~25 adults (100+ now), and use mostly silkworms instead. What do you think?

 

[robin]

are you able to get silkworm food? and how are they as far as breeders?

 

[gothra]

I bought 10 lbs of silkworm chow powder, they should last a very long time since I don't have many geckos to feed. I have bred silkworms a couple years ago; but at that time, half of my geckos didn't like the silkies; that's why I stopped breeding them and moved on to breed dubias. I bought 200 silkworm eggs last month, they're growing very well and only 2 of my geckos won't eat them. So it may work for me to have them as staple in replacement of the roaches.

Breeding silkworms is very easy, just give them enough food and keep them dry and clean (avoid mold), they'll do the rest themselves. Each pair of moths will lay 200-300 eggs, plenty for my 9 geckos (will be 13 soon )! I have already set aside 50 worms for breeding, the eggs can stay good for up to 6 months in the fridge.

 

[robin]

well try it and see how it goes. no harm in it i would think. silkworms are good for leos just hard to keep and breed for most people. i would try it. roaches can get kinda messy hehe and they are kinda gross LOL