Silk Worms
                                    
                                          

Silkworms will grow as much as you feed them and can live up to a week without food. However, they will lose hydration, so to keep a healthy silkworm you must feed at least once a day.

Temperature:
Keep them at a temperature of about 78 to 88 degrees, but be careful that there is not a lot of condensation in the container. This humidity can cause mold to form and kill your worms.
Allow the food to dry completely daily before placing the new wet chow on top of the old and the worms. They will move onto the new chow by themselves. Clean the container once every two to three days by pulling off the silky threads and emptying it of the poop. Make sure you always wash your hands before handling them. 

Enclosure:
They can be kept in a Tupperware-like container without any substrate. Make sure you’re not crowding them or some will not grow due to they won’t be allowed to eat. 



A healthy silkworm will eat for 26-30 days and then start weaving a cocoon.

Breeding:
When the silkworms are ready to weave their cocoon, they become a yellowish/brownish color. The skin is really tight, almost as if to burst. At this point they have stopped eating. 



Before the caterpillar begins weaving, it will empty its belly of all excess liquid by releasing a brownish wet substance.

You will notice them moving their heads in a figure eight. They have a small spinner on the lip through which they release the silk.

You can slice toiler paper rolls into rings for the silkworm to weave its cocoon in the opening. I transfer my worms when they are ready to weave into another container and they weave on the edge of the receptacle. You can also place dried branches on the container and they will climb onto the branches to weave.

It takes three days for a firm cocoon. 

 

 

Once the cocoon has been woven, place it in a different container lined with paper towels. 



The moths will start emerging after about 21 days. They emerge only at dawn by spitting a brownish/reddish liquid on the silk to dissolve it and pushing through. Each moth will urinate a reddish liquid as soon as they emerge. When dried this looks like a blood stain. Their wings will be furled and limp, so be careful not to pick the moth up at this point. Once the wings are unfurled and hardened, transfer the moth to a different container, also lined with paper towels. 

 
 

It’s a messy thing. 

 

The female is usually bigger around, and sometimes longer, than the male. The male will flap their wings quite a bit. The female attracts the male by releasing pheromones through an opening in their belly. The males have olfactory hairs on their antennae that help them detect the chemicals. 



The moths don’t fly, don’t eat or drink. Their only purpose is to mate and lay eggs. They will live only a week.

Once a male finds a female, they will stay attached for about a day. They separate and while the female lays her eggs, the male will find another female. Sometimes another male will grab the same female before she starts laying.

If you have more females than males, at this point you can transfer the female to another container where she can lay her eggs. This way, the male will find another female, therefore allowing more females to mate and hopefully giving you more eggs. Try to watch carefully and allow the females to mate only twice. Once they have laid their eggs the second time, you can feed to your dragon. They will not live much longer to lay more eggs.

Each female lays between 200 to 500 eggs. Replace the paper towel when eggs have been laid.

The eggs are a bright lemon yellow. Wait three days. The eggs that turn black are fertile, the eggs that don’t turn are infertile. Because in the wild the moths would lay their eggs in the fall and hatch in the spring, you will need to place the eggs n a zip loc bag - in the crisper of your fridge. Make sure you date the baggie. It is said you can keep in the refrigerator at least three weeks and up to 5 years, but I have only kept up to a year.

After the 3 weeks, take out the amount you want and place in a deli container. Keep warm. (I usually put it on top of my beardie’s tank.) Punch holes for air. Again, be careful mold does not form.

The eggs will hatch within 1 week to 21 days. If you look closely, they are ready to hatch when you can see the inside of the egg turning a light gray.

 

The new silkworm hatchlings look like tiny little moving pieces of string. They only eat Mulberry tree leaves or the prepared chow you can buy. 



If you use the leaves, make sure you only feed the young early leaves to the baby caterpillars. At this point, their jaw muscles are not strong enough to eat the mature leaf.

Change the leaves 3 times a day and make sure they have no moisture at all or your silkworm babies will drown. The babies are too weak to move from the old to the new leaf, so you will have to transfer them. Be very careful while doing this. After 5 days, they will be able to move onto the new leaf by themselves. Another option is to place the new leaf directly on top of the old.

Keep warm and keep feeding and your worms will grow to a healthy size in no time. 


                                                   
                                                            Crickets

                                       

First you will need to sex your crickets.

 A female cricket will have a long tube attached to the abdomen.  This is how she will deposit the eggs into the soil.



The male will not have this long tube, but more of a "V", what would look like a tail.



You will need adult crickets for breeding.  They will shed their skins 7 times to become adults.  
After a fresh shed, your crickets will be all white in color, and will change to a darker color after a few hours. 



I keep my breeders in a sweater box type rubbermaid container with no substrate.  It should be cleaned as needed, on a regular basis.



The males that will raid the nest and eat the eggs, therefore you want a higher female ration in each breeding container.  For example, in one rubbermaid container i will add 20 females, and 8-10 males, this will keep the males busy mating the females, and out of the eggs.  

Add a sandwich container with a mix of soil and a little sand.  I find this mix to work very well from others i have used for egg laying.  Make sure the mix is loosely packed, and is 1 1/2 to 2" thick.
Next add a little water to mix so it feels moist, but not wet.  Check the mix every day and lightly mist when needed.  If the soil happens to become dry, chances are the eggs will most certainly not hatch.

Make a few pin holes in the lid top for air, and cut a small hole either on top of the lid, or on the front of the container.

Add a piece of card board, a piece of egg carton, etc, for the females to climb into the container through the hole that was cut, to lay the eggs.



Add a few egg cartons or paper towel rolls for hiding places so breeding can take place.

Food while breeding is very importans.  It can consist of cricket gut load, sliced apples, greens, etc.  Crickets will eat just about anything, but make sure it is nutritious to ensure a healthy batch of hatchlings. 



Next you will need a heat sorce. I find a spot lamp, with a dark bulb, like black, works well, as crickets do best if they are kept in a dark place.

A heating pad will also work well, but i have always used a lamp to get higher temps, which should be placed on the opposite side of the rubbermaid, to keep a little humidity, but far enough away from the soil, to prevent the soil from drying out. 

One female can lay up to 500 eggs in the soil, so be prepaired to transfer the hatchlings to a larger enclosure when they hatch.

Now that your breeder set up is ready, after a few days you will see the female’s abdomen start to swell from filling up with eggs.  At this time, you may see her digging in the soil and depositing the eggs.

After 5-7 days, remove the container where the female has laid her eggs and place it in another container, adding a heat lamp to keep the temperatures between 80-90 degrees.

Place a new container in the breeding bin to keep the breeding process going.

No substrate is necessary, but keep an eye out for to much condensation, which may drown the hatchlings. 

Within 7 to 10 days you will see tiny hatchlings, no bigger than the tip of a pen, emerge from the soil.

Offer fresh greens or fruit imediately.  At this size, they will dry up and die very quickly.

The hatchlings will grow faster if you leave the heat sorce for them. At room temps they will grow much slower.

In the photo below, these tiny hatchlings are only a few hours old.



Cricket breeding is very easy to do.  Just remember to keep the soil moist and you too, will be successful at it.

We Thank Nancy McBride for sharing her expertise with us, and allowing
                              us to place her caresheet on our site: 


                     Wax Worms                                

                                            

The waxworm larvae will chew through wood or soft plastic.  Make sure you use glass or metal wide mouth jars, thick plastic material like plastic crisper or critter carrier, and or large lard or honey cans.

For the top you can use 20 mesh wire screen.

Start with no less than 50 worms.  Select the largest and plumpest specimen.



In nature, the larvae feed on pollen, honey and bees wax in honeybee combs.  Therefore, you will need to layer the bottom of your container with an ‘edible bedding.

You can use bran flour mixed with whole oats and a drizzle of honey.  Stir the honey into the dry bedding.  Crumble any globs and stir until your bedding is a dry mixture.

You can also use one box Gerber mixed cereal, 7 Tbsp of honey, 7 Tbsp of glycerin and 7 tbsp of boiling water.  Mix the honey, glycerin and water, and pour into the cereal.  Mix until the cereal is moist.  Allow to stand one day before using.



Keep at a bout 86°.  It takes 6 – 7 weeks to complete the cycle from egg to adult.

Before the mature larvae pupate, they crawl into a crevice or hollow place.  In this type of substrate, they will burrow into the bedding.



If any of the worms turn black and are soft, remove them.  This means they are dead.



The waxworm pupa is hard and has a deep redish-brown color.  The worms remain in their pupal state for about ten days.

 
 

To reduce further development, you can keep the pupae in a cool area for up to two months.  A temperature no lower than 60°.

Once the worms have pupated, crumple several pieces of waxed paper and place them into your container.

The moths will emerge after approximately 2 weeks.  They will mate and live about a week, feasting on the wax from the wax paper.

The female moth will lay her eggs in the folds of the wax paper.  Two days after she has laid them, you can collect them by placing a razor blade under one side of each egg and lifting.  You can now put the eggs in a jar and keep them cool to hatch at a later time.

When ready to hatch the eggs, place them in an escape-proof container with a layer of the edible bedding underneath the eggs.  Your worms should hatch within two weeks and will grow fast kept at room temperature and the honey/bran mixture as a substrate.

They have 7 instars during feeding, with most of their growth in the last two stages.

Once the worms hatch, place a very small orange slice in the container for them to drink from.  Leave it in the container for about a week, then take it out.  Repeating every three days.  Be very careful when doing this, that your new babies don’t run off.

Once the new worms are big enough to be feeders, you can choose to refrigerate them, or being the “Breeding Cycle” again.  Depending on the amount of worms you end up with, you could choose some as breeders and refrigerate the rest to feed to your herps.

We Thank Rayna Wadell for sharing her expertise with us, and allowing us to place her caresheet on our site:

                           
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