It turns out that the girlfriend and I were a bit too successful at self sustaining a horned worm population. Nine hawk moths with about twenty more coming any day.
With these amounts, we surely don’t have as much repashy as we’d need to sustain all of the worms once the first round of food cups are eaten.
If anybody in the Tampa Bay Area needs horned worms and would like to take some off our hands in about a week, please feel free to reach out to me as I definitely don’t have enough animals to eat them all.
If anybody has any recommendations for food for them, aside from repashy... please let me know.
I live in the area, Land O' Lakes technically. Oddly enough, I too am raising my own hornworms and silkworms. I haven't gotten moths yet, but I'm expecting them any minute.
Someone mentioned trying to sell them to a local shop for "store credit", but unless you know someone who's an owner, that's not worth your time - I've tried to do it in the past with both silk and hornworms.
Have you tried putting any of the eggs away in the fridge?
You can also slow down or speed up their growth/hatch rates with humidity and temps. (And you can actually put the worms themselves in a fridge every other day for a while before it messes with them)
All that being said, because I'm waiting for the worms [great song], I haven't had any hornworms in about 2-3 weeks for my guys and gals. If you're just trying to get rid of some I can take a few... otherwise you can attempt to sell them under the classifieds on this forum.
I also know that places like "Pinellas county Reptiles", the chain pet shops like petco, pet supplies plus, and pet city are really strange when it comes to the feeders. I basically got laughed at in a few places trying to even GIVE them silkworms for free.
I've got 8 worm eaters... one of which will handle the biggest and baddest. I've given my beardie girl some of the biggest worms I've seen. She literally will do flips jumping at the tongs/worm, it's great fun!
Glad to see I'm not the only one in town!
P.s. I no longer deal with the "local shops" after quite a few issues. The only 2 shops I will even go to any more are Pinellas Reptiles and Fins and Skins over in the Brandon area. When I do go to those stores it usually due to needing something NOW. If you need any roaches let me know... I know people ; )
Edit: I use Mulberry Farms for both silk and horn chow. It's worked for me and that's where I've gotten my silkworm eggs. However, I've been experiencing some issues with hatch rates on their eggs and their customer service seems to be kinda lacking... but they have a decent product otherwise. I wasn't able to get my "store bought" silkworms to spin a cocoon, but I have about 30 after the first gen of eggs from them.
