I am washing my hands every time and the food is in the fridge. About the food though, I covered it with seran wrap at first but then I cut it up into chunks and put it in a tupperware like dish with a lid. Is that ok or should I just leave it covered in the seran wrap? The worms stay between 80-85 degrees (it stays about 85 during the day and drops to about 80 at night). I have left the drawers open tonight in hopes of helping with the humidity issues. Thanks again, Froggeegurl
Personally I wouldn't cut up the chow unless you know you're going to be using it fairly quickly. You definitely need to leave those drawers open for at least 3 or 4 hours between feedings to let everything dry out. I'm betting the humidity is your problem. At this point I'd just leave the drawers open for a full day and don't feed them. This should help make sure things are really dry in there, which they really need to be most of the time. Let us know how this works. Good luck!!
I have lots of eggs!! The first set that I got turned 'medium grey'; I don't know how dark they need to get before its safe to go in the fridge, is it ok if I wait another 2-3 days (1 week after being laid)? Or is there a time limit to this? (I have another set that turned a lighter color, probably not fertile, but the eggs aren't white either, kinda light beige, I'll keep those for another week or so, just in case.)
Yay I have 2 cocooons yayy!!!!! I've run out of food for the other 18 worms but the first 2 cocooned yay!!!!
Chances are you'll want to keep out those that turned the medium gray color. Every once in a while I get a batch of eggs that doesn't ever get to the stage where I can put them in the fridge and instead goes right into the light gray phase and hatches. I think this is what you may be dealing with. With the ones that are a khaki color those are on the right track to be put in the fridge. Don't do it yet as they still need to develop further but eventually you'll see them turn into a really dark gray or almost black color. That's when you can put them into the fridge. Depending on your temps that should be within about 3 or 4 days from now. Good luck!! You can feed them plain lettuce for a few days until the new food arrives if you want to save them. FYI, chances are you're not going to get any eggs from just two cocoons. But it's a start!
oh ya the chances of gettign a male and female and produce fertile eggs are like 1 in a million so m not expecing much... ill be just excited to see if one moth comes out!!! It's kinda just fun to play god and watch the cycle of life working.... (I'm going to try again with more worms next time) but one dealer tells me that theres no chance of ever getting different sexes out of the same batch of cocoons which sounds like a huge crock of BS even though he says he has batches of 5000 worms all cocoon and hatch and they will almost always be the exact same sex all 5000 of them so he has to get the other sex moth from other dealers.... Now he may be lying to me to get me to not try to get my own colony going or else he may actually (without knowing) be doing something to cause this phemomenon... I will be looking at his operation but i wont release his company or location until i know what the story is.... I don't wanna call him directly a liar until i see it myself but has anybody else heard this? im thinking maybe in a batch or 10 or 20 worms but 5000 all females? or entirely all males? Sounds fishy to me
question about the silkworm chow. i have had some for about two weeks and its been in the frig for most of that time but it was shipped and out of the frig for about four-five days. is the chow still ok to feed to the worms?
I think it's probably okay if it hasn't been handled with dirty hands, etc. I'm really only guessing, though.
Most of them will come out on their own but some will never actually make it all the way out. Well I guess it depends on what he considers a batch. Is a batch all the cocoons that are spun in a weeks time or just a day? Or is it an entire colony regardless of if they all spin at different times over 2 weeks or so? If the dealer has the same kind of silkies I use(betting he does) and he defines a batch of cocoons being an entire generation of worms then he's wrong. That is unless I've got some magical thing going on to give me both male and female moths in a batch of cocoons. If the dealer consideres a batch of cocoons those who have been spun in a certain time period then I couldn't tell you if he's right or wrong.
no he considers a generation a batch.... he swears u will only get 99.9% one sex of the other... i thought it sounded a lil weird but maybe he has the male/female moth secret figured out.
will do ont he plus side i now have 6 big beautiful cocoons and 6 other worms which will either remain wanderes til they die(since i have run out of silky chow ) or will decide to cocoon within the next 2 days...
Can't you feed your remaining worms off to your beardie? At 13" I'm sure your beardie can take a 2" worm no problem at all.
oh ya he loves em but i am tryign to get as many cocoons as possible and i know if u stop feeding em too soon they will still cocoon they just have a low hatch rate... i now have 10 cocoons and 2 wanderers left so they will probly becomer feeders... i have liek 4 other types of worms for variation he can survive on... plus veggies
i ordered some silkies about 2 weeks ago and have some leftover chow, it's the powder, in a sealed bag (i haven't opened it yet) 1/2lb of it.. if anybody wants it pm me, i have no use for it, it's just sittin in my fridge (says on package will keep a few months out of fridge, over a year in fridge) figure i'de contribute somethin to someone instead of letting it go to waste :lol:
I don't have a bearded dragon yet, but am planning on getting one next week. I just emailed the breeder and she didn't recommend using silkworms as a staple diet. She said her adult dragons didn't like them and that they were hard to breed. From what I've read, this isn't the case. What do you think?
I think the breeder is crazy =) Just kidding, i guess all draogns have different tastes, but it seems pretty strange that none of her dragons like silks. Mine loves his! I also disagree about not using them as a staple, considering silkworms are literally the healthiest feeder insect you cna get your hands on They arent nesesarily hard to breed, i mean, they are harder than several other feeders, but the biggest problems are cost and the time it takes to feed them (if you have a lot)
