Breeding Silkworms
Introduction
Materials Required
Hatching The Eggs
Feeding
Maintaining Adults
Introduction
Silkworms make good feeders for a lot of reptiles, however I have no experience with them so here is a care sheet from Sam Sullivan, which can be found on his site Leo Info >Here<
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Materials
Required
The
materials required for a basic setup are as follows:
Hatching The Eggs
You should be buying the silkworms in egg form and place about 200 eggs in a large petri dish. When you overcrowd the petri dish, you have a less percentage of survival. When you get the eggs, leave a lid on the petri dish and place a cereal bowl upside down over it. Leave a damp sponge (or paper towel) next to the dish for humidity, and prop the cereal bowl up about ¼ inch for air. You should maintain the eggs at a temperature ranging from 78°F to 88°F (the hotter, the faster they hatch). If you have them at room temperature, they will take longer to hatch, and won’t grow as well. It is better if you heat the petri dish using an incubator, but you don’t have to. The eggs will turn from a purple colour to a light blue before they hatch. Once they start hatching you should take off the cereal bowl and expose them to light. This should help them hatch within one day.
Feeding
After the majority of the eggs hatch you should place 4-7 chow strips in the petri dish (with small gaps between each of them) and close the lid again. After a week place new chow strips between the old ones. Allow some time for the silkworms to start eating the new ones before you remove the old ones (to make sure none are left crawling around the ones you through away). Allow 5 more days for the silkworms to grow to a size of about 1 inch.
Maintaining Adults
After they feed for another 5 days or so take off the lid and slide them into a large, but shallow Tupperware. Keep feeding strips of chow almost every day. Keep a lid on the Tupperware when they eat to prevent it from drying out. Make sure the old piece is thoroughly dry before replacing it with a new one.
Keep feeding them until they are the size you want them and then feed them. They reach one inch in 2 weeks and 2 inches in under a month if you have them in ideal heating conditions. After 4 weeks they can start spinning into cocoons. They will come out as moths 3 weeks later and won’t eat or fly. Then they will mate, lay eggs, and die within a week. These eggs will turn from yellow to gray (meaning they are fertile). If they don’t hatch in the next three weeks, it usually means they won’t hatch until next year.
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