Pet store won't let me get hornworms!

I made this table comparing the nutritional value of various feeders. I hope it is legible.
 

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My only question is are you looking at the lenght or width of the hornworms? You should look at the length vs the size of your chams head. A 2 month old cham is fairly tiny, so the hornworms would be really tiny (for a hornworm). Did you ask them why they won't sell them to you? In the end, the customer is always right, and as far as they know, you have other lizards that you got elsewhere. They're not the only shop in town, and for that matter, they obviously don't want to make a profit on your money, anyway!
 
Since when do phoenix worms have less calcium then hornworms?
This is the information that I found by researching several sites that provided the nutritional analysis. I was surprised as well. The other thing about the calcium in phoenix worms is that the ratio of calcium to phosphorous (i think phos) is 2:1.
 
Thing about silkworms, the striped variations are different forms of silkworms. The colors are actually influenced on their color of food such as chow. The white silkworms have a low survival rate due to low immune system compared to other species of silkworms. Zebra silkworms have a slightly heightened immune system. My personal favorite species of silkworm is a tiger-hybrid species. It has an extremely high immune system even at the youngest stages and is hard to kill compared to zebra silkworms or normal silkworms. I don't keep any of my silkworms in a incubator, the whites/zebras or hybrids. However I rarely lose any no matter the type. But hybrids are extremely expensive, and hard to get regularly (plus there is only one place I know that sells them). I usually pay a price for at least 1 dollar a worm or more, when I buy them and I only buy them when I have bought a decent stock of zebra and want to mix bloodlines with them.
 
Thing about silkworms, the striped variations are different forms of silkworms. The colors are actually influenced on their color of food such as chow. The white silkworms have a low survival rate due to low immune system compared to other species of silkworms. Zebra silkworms have a slightly heightened immune system. My personal favorite species of silkworm is a tiger-hybrid species. It has an extremely high immune system even at the youngest stages and is hard to kill compared to zebra silkworms or normal silkworms. I don't keep any of my silkworms in a incubator, the whites/zebras or hybrids. However I rarely lose any no matter the type. But hybrids are extremely expensive, and hard to get regularly (plus there is only one place I know that sells them). I usually pay a price for at least 1 dollar a worm or more, when I buy them and I only buy them when I have bought a decent stock of zebra and want to mix bloodlines with them.


I have even found places advertising green and pink silkworms. Are these species fed dyed chow or are they hybridized or genetically modified, to produce these color forms?
Very interesting.
 
Dyed chow from what I understand. Unless they started genetically modifying them. And from what I know they usually use white silkworms for it as they take on the color better. It's weird.
 
I made this table comparing the nutritional value of various feeders. I hope it is legible.
Are you sure that Silkworms have more calcium than Hornworms? Just wondering. I always thought that silkworms and Dubia had the most.
 
I am pretty sure phoenix worms should be at the top of the list with calcium. Not sure about hornworms and silkworms. From what most people say on the forum silkworms have the most calcium compared to hornworms. However I just raise silkworms because they are easier.
 
I managed multiple pet stores. There's only two kinds of stores imo, those that will sell anything to anybody with cash in hand and the ones that make the attempt to only sell what a customer needs, or items that will work the way the customer needs it to.

We were stores that only sold a person what they needed. For example, we did not sell Burmese pythons. They get huge, most people can't care for that type of animal, but at $99 they were hot. Instead we intentionally steered people towards either ball pythons or red tail boas. Want an iguana? We usually steered you to a water dragon or a Sailfin dragon.

Despite that effort, you always had the few customers who came in wanting what they wanted.

I had one customer come in once wanting certain tropical fish to feed to his tropical fish, we turned him down.

Another time I had a kid wanting pinkies to feed to his uromastyx, we said no and he got pissed. (They eat veggies mostly and his was baby, the pinky was bigger than its head)


So to me, it's odd a store would not sell the OP some hornworms, unless they know something we the readers don't know. I know of plenty of places that would just sell a kid whatever kind of feeder they want, for them to not sell the hornworms says something we are not getting here.

To the OP, trust me on this or not, feeding your animal the biggest thing you think they can eat is NOT good for the animals, sometimes smaller is much better.

Lastly, hornworms are not a the greatest feeder out there by a long shot.
 
I managed multiple pet stores. There's only two kinds of stores imo, those that will sell anything to anybody with cash in hand and the ones that make the attempt to only sell what a customer needs, or items that will work the way the customer needs it to.

We were stores that only sold a person what they needed. For example, we did not sell Burmese pythons. They get huge, most people can't care for that type of animal, but at $99 they were hot. Instead we intentionally steered people towards either ball pythons or red tail boas. Want an iguana? We usually steered you to a water dragon or a Sailfin dragon.

Despite that effort, you always had the few customers who came in wanting what they wanted.

I had one customer come in once wanting certain tropical fish to feed to his tropical fish, we turned him down.

Another time I had a kid wanting pinkies to feed to his uromastyx, we said no and he got pissed. (They eat veggies mostly and his was baby, the pinky was bigger than its head)


So to me, it's odd a store would not sell the OP some hornworms, unless they know something we the readers don't know. I know of plenty of places that would just sell a kid whatever kind of feeder they want, for them to not sell the hornworms says something we are not getting here.

To the OP, trust me on this or not, feeding your animal the biggest thing you think they can eat is NOT good for the animals, sometimes smaller is much better.

Lastly, hornworms are not a the greatest feeder out there by a long shot.
I wanted the hornworms to offer variety because all I've been feeding him lately were dubias. But I do see your point in feeding insects that are barely the right size may not be the best. For now I will feed him dubias until I can get really tiny hornworms or silkies.
 
I am not just talking about at a local store o_O unless you live somewhere out of country and in a weird country there should be a lot available online.
 
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