Can an 11 month old eat a hawk moth?

[twinklefingers]

First time hawk moth mom tonight. ☺

Attached pic of first moth hatched. 7 more could come now anytime.

Also attached bonus pic of Khalid sleeping a couple nights ago. (The flash was an accident)

These moths are the size of my finger. Khalid should be 1 year old in mid May. He is a male veiled cham.

Can he handle this feeder at this time?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Gingero]

Nicely hatched moth! Mine always have deformed wings lol

General rule of thumb is no feeders wider than the width between their eyeballs. I think he can take it. He probably won't show interest if it is too big.

 

[twinklefingers]

Nicely hatched moth! Mine always have deformed wings lol

General rule of thumb is no feeders wider than the width between their eyeballs. I think he can take it. He probably won't show interest if it is too big.

Thank you for the vote of encouragement! I had in my head the width of their mouth, but wanted to see what people around here thought before I dove in.

 

[Gingero]

Let me know how it goes!

Just curious, how'd you hatch your moth?

 

[jamest0o0]

I second what @Gingero said. Especially on them usually refusing food that is too big for them.

 

[twinklefingers]

Let me know how it goes!

Just curious, how'd you hatch your moth?

How did I come to be hatching hawk moths in my kitchen? It wasn't intentional, really; I had too many hornworms and decided to do an experiment. So I did some research and winged some parts... Here's what I did:

I think I was inspired by having them NOT fly all over or throw dirt or spray right away, so I created these out of gallon jugs to pupate them in.


I threw in the new soil I had laying around, same stuff used to re-pot the enclosure plants. Schultz Potting Soil Plus.

I put the hornworms in the jugs. One had already pupated, others were close. I ended up like 10+ hornworms in these jugs or whatever container I could find. Actually, I didn't have enough jugs and put some in a regular like tupperware (no tall sides or smaller opening at the top). The ones in the more 'open air' tupperware container did significantly worse. Tried to give them at least 3 inches of space to themselves. Just placed them mostly on top of the soil, like 1/3 of the way covered on their sides.


Then I just left them there, by my screen door. No electric lights. Just opened the curtain in the morning (not like at dawn or anything). They probably got like 8 hours of light a day. I knew they could go into diapause, but I wasn't too serious.


I also sprayed water into the jugs every morning, like 10 good sprays or more. The intent was to moisten the top soil, but I also skipped some days, so on the days I did do it, I might have given them a bit more than needed. Never like pouring water in, of course. They were never swimming lol

So I set this all up in like mid February and just stuck dumbly to the routine of "the moths need light, water..." everyday.

Then yesterday I'm trying to relax, but my cat is all over the cage (that's a small repitbreeze, the one that came with the kit-that-shall-not-be-named). I'm, again dumbly, like "Get DOWN Binx, I'm trying to watch The Circle France!!!" when my boyfriend calls from the depths of his First Person Shooter MMO "Your moths probably hatched".

... Commence the screaming. It's the size of a bird. Shit what did I do? I call a the friend that bought me too many hornworms to begin with while I was away on vacation. She is so excited for me to be the moth mom of the night. She obviously planned this, living vicariously through me.
Look at her. She's loving my terror. Sadist.


She knows exactly what she's doing. She's like, "It needs a stick". And all my studies from months ago come flooding back. Oh yeah, to pump up and dry it's wings. I begin to realize how I'm woefully unprepared. How I was in denial that they would hatch. I grab wood skewers from the drawer. I will get thicker sticks from the backyard tomorrow.


So, yeah. I don't have the butterfly feeder, the nectar, the medium ornamental pepper plant. I was quarantining this new schefflera in the same cage to keep it away from the cats. So I transferred the new moth onto the branch of that plant for the night. Asked ya'll if Khalid is good to eat this dude, and fed it to him this morning.


He was definitely interested. What a good appetite he has.

To be honest, one wing of the moth didn't look like it was going to pump out fully. I don't know if this is because it didn't get enough moisture while a pupa or whether it injured itself when it didn't immediately have a stick to climb onto after emerging. We'll see how the others come out.


There are 7 more pupae in the old cage. There a the hummingbird feeder and commercial nectar on the way, too.

So that's the story of how I unwittingly became a moth mom.

Thanks for asking. I think I'll do a blog if all goes well. At this point I do hope to fix it all up to breed them. Tips appreciated.

 

[Persnickety Parson's]

These moths will need a large flight cage, and a hummingbird feeder, they eat while flying, otherwise you have to hand feed them by very gently unveiling their tongue and dipping it in food.

The typical cham cage is too small, you will need a 4x4x4 at minimum, in my experience. If you can provide a smaller enclosure where they can both fly freely and hover, let me know.

 

[twinklefingers]

These moths will need a large flight cage, and a hummingbird feeder, they eat while flying, otherwise you have to hand feed them by very gently unveiling their tongue and dipping it in food.

My plan is to find a different plant that takes up less room for the 18x18x36 reptibreeze. Even if its some fake plants I have for now.
I found this video on hand feeding. Looks doable if needed:

 

[Persnickety Parson's]

My plan it to find a different plant that takes up less room for the 18x18x36 reptibreeze. Even if its some fake plants I have for now.
I found this video on hand feeding. Looks doable if needed:

I'm looking too will let you know.

Watched your vid, that's a similar method to what I did.

I had mine hanging from the sides of a cup and doing the feeding.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/hornworm-moth-set-up-and-care.724/

Here's a blast from the past.