favorite worm?

yoshi9

New Member
What is your favorite worm to breed? What is the easiest to keep up with and handle? What breeds the fastest? One that's nutritious too.
 
I have never actually bred worms but have looked into it and from what I saw superworms are probably the easiest all around but I'm sure someone that has done it will chime in.
 
I am trying to breed superworms right now so I can't tell you results yet. I can say that getting them from the larval to beetle stage is easy and caring for the beetles has been easy so far. I used a coffee grinder and ground up some oatmeal then put the beetles on that. Feed them some water/veggies every day and I am just waiting to see some results. It takes a long time but there will be a lot of worms (i hope) when my ~20 beetles are done breeding.
 
mealworms are easy but not very benificial for chameleons so stick with supers and really its easier to breed dubia roaches.
 
Jrh3 I am already breeding dubias :) I just wanted to try something different and also be able to have a supply at all times. When breeding supers I don't get how you seperate the beetles from the babys or if you have to, can someone post their setup or a link of where you got yours? Thanks!
 
Doable, just need lots of space, food for them...and time of course. :) Wish you good luck if you starting it! :)
 
I would like to breed silks, but as you said keeping butterflies isn't an easy task :(

The toughest part of breeding silkworm is not the moth phase. It is the larvae phase. The moth has no mouth. So, they do not eat. Their only purpose is to mate and lay eggs.
 
The toughest part of breeding silkworm is not the moth phase. It is the larvae phase. The moth has no mouth. So, they do not eat. Their only purpose is to mate and lay eggs.

Thats interesting. Have you ever bred silkworms before?
 
Thats interesting. Have you ever bred silkworms before?

Yes. I have. But, I decided not to anymore. I realized it's taking away too much of my time.

The larvae needs to be in a clean condition practically everyday. Hundreds of years of selective breeding caused silkworms to have no immune system and the moth to have vestigial wings (meaning that the wing is practically useless). So, it is best to handle the silkies using gloves during the cleaning, so you don't contaminate the whole colony with bacterias from your hands.

I have written a crash course on silkworm breeding in this thread, in case you are interested:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/silkworms-101-a-7906/

The only change to that old thread is that I would probably recommend using the actual mulberry leaves than a processed food seen in the picture.
I found less mortality rate when I used fresh leaves. And, the frass (poop) is also drier than the one produced after eating chow. Drier frass means less possible for molds, bacteria, and fungus to develop. Less mold, fungus, and bacteria means healthier silkies.

As far as other worms, I have not tried supers (since my chams doesn't exactly like them), and I have failed miserably breeding hornworms :eek:. I could never get the male and female moths to hatch at the same time to mate. It's always one will hatch first and die before the other one have the chance to come out.
 
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