Big day for feeders... And some ?'s

[seanUTD]

Today was a big day for my feeder situation... I unfortunately had a disastrous first go at silkies and only about 35 are successfully growing but with thus 35 I plan to breed all of them not feeding off even one to maximize my potential outcome so today I built the bin for them and got a heat source working at about 80 degrees.... I also upped my woo ice colony that is blooming with babies up to a new much larger home in a rubbermaid pull out drawer... And while outside I stumbled onto a rarity in my area... A MASSIVE katydid! So I have a few questions with all this development...

1) does anyone have any info I may need in breeding myvsilkies?

2) does anyone know how to attract katydids in good numbers naturally?

 

[chamzilla91]

Sorry no info on the silkie situation. Buuut katydids attract other katydids by the noise they make, its like a song to attract mates. That's the only thing I could find besides that they eat leaves and fruits/veggies so that means they could be gutloaded if you'd want tofeed them off

 

[suzi]

1) there is a very informative sight called www.wormspit.com/
I purchased 1000 eggs and they all hatched( keeping them at 80 ) I failed terribly when I spotted a tiny mold on the chow, I read to grate chow over them and wait for them to climb to the top of chow, so I did this when they were only 2 weeks old and it squashed 980 of them! It was like missiles
Don't do what I did! Lol everything has to be very sterile. I think I put too much chow in when it wasn't necessary. So I recommend a little at a time to prevent what happened to me. Luckily I still had 20 left fed off 15 cocooned 5 and just got a few hundred eggs from two pairs of moths, so I get another chance to make things right! If you have access to mulberry leaves then yay for you I don't so purchased chow in bulk which would also recommend if you plan on breeding them it is much cheaper that way good luck

2) ummmm no

 

[suzi]

Oh yeah, I kept them in a small plastic bin like a cricket keeper with freezer paper at the bottom with a piece of hardwood cloth on top of the paper with the worms on top of the mesh with the food so the frass drops onto the paper through the mesh (like the rearing box on manduca project) and cut toilet paper rolls in 1/2 for them to cocoon, when they did I would remove the roll and cocoon to another cricket keeper lined with paper towel, hope that helps

 

[seanUTD]

@suzi- thanks for the info! I'm sorry for your loss and gain lol... I do have access for a tree and just today switched them to the leaves... I'm just hoping in a good 2 months I'll have awesome silkies to feed off!

 

[suzi]

@suzi- thanks for the info! I'm sorry for your loss and gain lol... I do have access for a tree and just today switched them to the leaves... I'm just hoping in a good 2 months I'll have awesome silkies to feed off!

Your welcome that's awesome, I hope you do too! And thanks for your condolences lmao!