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Anyone here ever fooled around with these moths? Wonder if they could be cultured as feeders or if it would be too labor intensive.
silkworms
- Thread starter dtknow
- Start date
labor intensive... i tried doing it, but alot of care is needed...
i used wire mesh to less frass fall beneath, but it eventually killed them, maybe if you use plastic mesh screen it might work...
good luck, its a fun project which i had to cut short since there was too many dying at the same time. and if one dies or is in the process of dying (and you can tell if you gently pick up the suspecious one, it will rip apart and fluid will come out) unlike healthy ones that are squishy and flexible.
i used wire mesh to less frass fall beneath, but it eventually killed them, maybe if you use plastic mesh screen it might work...
good luck, its a fun project which i had to cut short since there was too many dying at the same time. and if one dies or is in the process of dying (and you can tell if you gently pick up the suspecious one, it will rip apart and fluid will come out) unlike healthy ones that are squishy and flexible.
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Used as feeders, where have you been, they are one of the most popular feeders,easy to raise, and loads of online shops sell them by the hundreds of thousands!
I have raised 30 (at the most) at one time, but for pets, I got them from an insect store, but any feeder animal store online should sell them or their eggs.
It's alot easier to raise them on fresh mulberry leaves (preferably white mulberry), but if you do that it can only be when the mulberry trees have leaves. They sell a silkworm chow you make at home by mixing it with water and storing it in the fridge. To get alot of silkworms you need alot of chow, they almost eat 24 hours a day, until they are ready to pupate! The moths mate like crazy, so getting fertile eggs is so easy (200+ just from 1 female!). Most of the time you must store the eggs in the fridge for them to hatch, but quite a few hatch without this process. I have kept eggs in the fridge for over a year and within 1 week of taking them out they all hatched! Silkworms hardly move, except their mouths for eating, they are lazy creatures. If they fall on the ground you will find them in the same place for days (if food is left by them so they dont starve)
Before they are ready to pupate the silkworms will stop eating, have a yellowish tint to their bodies, and they will be really soft. They will wander around looking for a corner to pupate.
Any more questions just PM me or reply here.
I have raised 30 (at the most) at one time, but for pets, I got them from an insect store, but any feeder animal store online should sell them or their eggs.
It's alot easier to raise them on fresh mulberry leaves (preferably white mulberry), but if you do that it can only be when the mulberry trees have leaves. They sell a silkworm chow you make at home by mixing it with water and storing it in the fridge. To get alot of silkworms you need alot of chow, they almost eat 24 hours a day, until they are ready to pupate! The moths mate like crazy, so getting fertile eggs is so easy (200+ just from 1 female!). Most of the time you must store the eggs in the fridge for them to hatch, but quite a few hatch without this process. I have kept eggs in the fridge for over a year and within 1 week of taking them out they all hatched! Silkworms hardly move, except their mouths for eating, they are lazy creatures. If they fall on the ground you will find them in the same place for days (if food is left by them so they dont starve)
Before they are ready to pupate the silkworms will stop eating, have a yellowish tint to their bodies, and they will be really soft. They will wander around looking for a corner to pupate.
Any more questions just PM me or reply here.
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I raised a few as pets in topaware. As soon as the eggs hatched i let them go. This was of course before i had any of my bug eating pets
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Most likely they would not live in the wild, they dont know to wander around if they eat the leaves on a branch, and end up starving to death. I tried it and very few even moved, most got eaten by wasps, but they did molt a few times before being attacked. If you put something around the branch so nothing could get to them, theres a chance they could develop outside, or in a greenhouse.
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Silk moths are the only domesticated insect. They have been cultured for thousands of years, so long that, they no longer look for food. They can be raised on open trays and they will not wander off of the tray. The adults no longer develope usable wings. I raised some, from eggs, with the "silkworm chow", worked really well for small feeders, but you are right, they become a lot of work as the grow, just trying to keep the clean.
Jim
Jim
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After the females layed all the eggs and become skinny, well mine actually flew across my yard, but I had to hold them high in the air so they had enough space to get their wings going. They only did this for 2 days, the 3rd day they died from no more nutrition stored in them. The longest I had a silkworm moth living was for 9 days, and it was a female.