Coastal Silks Silkworm Keeper

Steve A

Steve A

Chameleon Enthusiast
I've been keeping my silkworms in this. I was doing good for a while, but it was a ton of work cleaning it every day and eventually it caught up to me.

Is anyone else using this kit? If so, could you please show me how you have it setup? I assume you have to clean it daily regardless. which is fine. But I felt no matter how I had it setup.... the silkworms were hanging out in their poop regardless.

I've had it setup so that the worms were on the top of the screen and had it bent up so it was off the bottom and then sprinkled their food on them. I also had it kinda straight but above the bottom by like an inch. I also tried having it like diagonal and what not. Just trying to see if anyone has a better, easier, more efficient way. If that way means I need a different keeper, I have an extra, larger keeper already so that would be fine.


https://www.coastalsilkworms.com/silkworms/silkworm-keeper-v2.html

img_4322.jpg
 
Yep, that’s it! 😄

Not sure how many large ones you are keeping in there, but I usually move them to a bigger bin after they are a little over an inch long. It helps them properly shed/molt with the extra space.
 
janjan20 said:
Yep, that’s it! 😄

Not sure how many large ones you are keeping in there, but I usually move them to a bigger bin after they are a little over an inch long. It helps them properly shed/molt with the extra space.
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I discarded them unfortunately. But I ordered extra small ones because I am trying a little experiment to see if I get them super small, if Spike will simply eat them like his BSFL. I'm gonna put them in the same feeding dish and see how that goes. So I might not even need this stuff yet but I am saving it for down the road.

So the stuff I have now, or even the gutter guard... do I raise it? Or just keep it flat on the bottom?
 
Oh ok lol! My oldest cham did not like silkworms initially. He was the pickiest out of the 4. He finally started eating them about a year in. He now eats everything lol.

You can try to raise it and make it like a bridge so the poops will fall to the bottom or leave it flat and when you take the gutter guard out it will fall through the holes that way.
 
ok ty thats what I was doing before but I think it'll be better with them being smaller until I get the gutter guard.

It's the funniest thing. Breeder said silks were easily his favorite. And when I first got him for the first 2-3 days.... as I put silks on branches he ate them IMMEDIATELY. No hesitation. Excited to eat them, even.

Once I started giving him BSFL + crickets he won't really touch ANYthing else.
 
Oh really?! That is interesting lol! Sometimes they prefer some bugs over others and that is probably the case for him now lol. I think panthers can be particularly picky as well.
 
janjan20 said:
Oh really?! That is interesting lol! Sometimes they prefer some bugs over others and that is probably the case for him now lol. I think panthers can be particularly picky as well.
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Yeah this is why I was concerned initially. I thought it was weird that he just....stopped eating them. He will literally walk over them on the branches, putting his little hand DIRECTLY on top of them as he's walking to get to the crickets/BSFL lol. Hes snatched 1 or 2 since he's been on a cricket/BSFL kick, but other than that the only time I saw him eat one was when a cricket got loose and was sharing the silkworms food and he ate them both in 1 shot by accident lol Or.... maybe that was on purpose!?

Say Word Lol GIF by Desus & Mero
 
You can place some off the same "egg crate" light diffuser product used for drainage on the bottom and then place the gutter guard on top of that. This will give you a good 1/2" of clear space below for their dookie to collect. This is how I keep mine. Just a small tupperware container, no lid, egg crate on bottom, vinyl screen/gutter guard on top. I regularly keep 100 mediums at a time like this and generally only lose 5 or so in a batch over the course of 2-3 weeks of feeding them off.
 
regal81455 said:
You can place some off the same "egg crate" light diffuser product used for drainage on the bottom and then place the gutter guard on top of that. This will give you a good 1/2" of clear space below for their dookie to collect. This is how I keep mine. Just a small tupperware container, no lid, egg crate on bottom, vinyl screen/gutter guard on top. I regularly keep 100 mediums at a time like this and generally only lose 5 or so in a batch over the course of 2-3 weeks of feeding them off.
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I was finding that keeping that material for them to climb on was a pain in the butt to clean because they kept releasing silk all over it lol

What I've been doing is just keeping them on the bottom of the container, and using a cheese grater to grate their food over top of them. I clean it regularly like once every other day to sometimes daily, depending on how it gets. I have them in a critter cage now so I can easily flip that, shake most of the poop and dried up food out of it over the trash, then clean the rest by hand. It can be tedious but its the easiest way for me so far.

This sounds like a good idea though. I may try this!
 
This is my set up (see attached photo), I use crafts plastic canvas for the floor then elevate it from the container floor. The frass go directly in between the plastic canvas and the container floor. When it is time to clean, I just pull the canvas up and throw the frass in the garbage not disturbing the worms.

IMG_9401.jpeg


IMG_9402.jpeg
 
Steve A said:
ok ty thats what I was doing before but I think it'll be better with them being smaller until I get the gutter guard.

It's the funniest thing. Breeder said silks were easily his favorite. And when I first got him for the first 2-3 days.... as I put silks on branches he ate them IMMEDIATELY. No hesitation. Excited to eat them, even.

Once I started giving him BSFL + crickets he won't really touch ANYthing else.
Click to expand...
This is why I say people should raise animals before they have kids. These are the kinds of frustrating things kids do and you have to develop some creative work arounds for their nonsense and protests
 
Steve A said:
Yeah this is why I was concerned initially. I thought it was weird that he just....stopped eating them. He will literally walk over them on the branches, putting his little hand DIRECTLY on top of them as he's walking to get to the crickets/BSFL lol. Hes snatched 1 or 2 since he's been on a cricket/BSFL kick, but other than that the only time I saw him eat one was when a cricket got loose and was sharing the silkworms food and he ate them both in 1 shot by accident lol Or.... maybe that was on purpose!?

Say Word Lol GIF by Desus & Mero
Click to expand...
One time I put superworms and silks in the same cup and they got tangled together in a silk web. Bert ate maybe 3 silks and 3 super worms at once. It was a breathtaking accomplishment
 
Andrew1283 said:
This is why I say people should raise animals before they have kids. These are the kinds of frustrating things kids do and you have to develop some creative work arounds for their nonsense and protests
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So true lol I was lucky enough to have at least a few pets when I was younger before I became a father :ROFLMAO:
 
Beman said:
I bought this for when they get larger... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LNNS3W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1
It is big enough for the poop to fall through to the floor of the bin and the silks crawl around on it. I just put the food on this as well.
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That's exactly what I have. But I've been ordering them really small and growing them. Don't get me wrong this works really well. My only complaint though is silk gets stuck on it and it becomes a pain to clean lol idk ... maybe I am being to weird about how clean it needs to be??? I stopped using it because it was hard to pull all the little strands of silk off.
 
Steve A said:
That's exactly what I have. But I've been ordering them really small and growing them. Don't get me wrong this works really well. My only complaint though is silk gets stuck on it and it becomes a pain to clean lol idk ... maybe I am being to weird about how clean it needs to be??? I stopped using it because it was hard to pull all the little strands of silk off.
Click to expand...
Yeah this is what I bought... But I throw it away if its too dirty and a pain and just cut another piece from the roll. LOL I am lazy though.
 
I get my silkworms from Ralph Fryer at Red Silk and he ships them in the same type of cups that hornworms come in. They last for a couple weeks and grow to full adults.
 
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