So i was shocked when i went into my reptile room yesterday to find that almost all of my silkworms had died. I've had many silkworms in the past and have never had a mass die off like this, in fact its usually the opposite and i end up with several cocoons and very large adults. I didn't change anything in the way i keep them...I use 6qt rubber maid tubs, keep them in the reptile room which holds around 80 degrees all day, and a little colder at night, i feed the silkworm chow which i keep in a tuppeware in the fridge - with a layer of saran wrap over the chow and a lid over that. I never touch the chow with my hands, using only a clean fork to scrape it from the tub and place it in with the silkies. I had this particular batch of silkies for a couple weeks kept in this method and they were doing fine, thriving and growing. When i first noted the die off i suspected that perhaps the room had gotten unusually cold overnight, so i placed the tub with the remaining silkies over an extra piece of heat tape that is heating my cornsnakes, set at a staple 85 degrees. This morning all the remaining silkies are dead. Im a bit upset just because they are so expensive and i was going to try and breed them to save money...I also now have a bunch of silkworm chow and no silkies to eat it! ugh! I want to order more to eat the remaining chow and hopefully to grow and breed them but i want to figure out what happened. Any ideas anyone???
Where did you get them from? I have had so much luck with Mulberry farms...not too much with Coastal, though... You are right, they are very expensive and it's so disappointing when you have so many die off.
possibly some alien bacteria got to them through the air or from inside the reptile room. only thing you can do is clean the whole thing out with alchohol and start again... hopefully it has nothing to do with the chow you have
