Recipe for Hornworm chow?

[alinder450]

The title says it all. Does anyone have a recipe for hornworm chow they would like to share?

As we all know hornworms are one of the most expensive feeders that you can buy and their food is also pricey for feeder food. It would be awesome for chameleon owners on this forum and very benefical to all the chameleons we own to have this rare information. It almost seems like people that know how to make it try to keep it on the hush-hush. I'll go ahead and assume this is so they can sell it to make profits off of people that share the same love for their animals.

With this being said the chow that you buy from our sponsors is top notch stuff that enough good things cannot be said about. Their product is tried and proven to be the best of the best. If you do not have the time or skills to make your own, which most people don't, then ordering chow from our forum sponsors is for you! Ofcourse, if no one besides the sponsors has a recipe it will be for all of us

The only recipe I have been able to find on the internet gives you the ingredients but not the amounts of each ingredient. Think about what a great thing it would be for the community of this forum to have this recipe and how happy our animals would be to eat more hornworms!

 

[eppcheck]

I did a little research awhile back and this is all I could find.

http://www.entm.purdue.edu/entomology/outreach/recipe/artificialdiet.pdf

It looks easy enough if you can get all the ingredients. I haven't tried it yet so if you do let me know how it goes. Hope this helps

 

[fl orchidslave]

Hi everyone, I am new to this forum and have my first Veiled Cham, a juv. There is so much great info here! Thanks! In looking at different feeder colony options, hornworms are a menace to tomato plants. This perfect host could at least supplement the hornworm diet couldn't it? I grow the plants in 5 gallon buckets so garden space isnt a necessity.

 

[summoner12]

The only recipe I have been able to find on the internet gives you the ingredients but not the amounts of each ingredient. Think about what a great thing it would be for the community of this forum to have this recipe and how happy our animals would be to eat more hornworms!

Not trying to be a downer... but buying the chow from someone like Mulberry is gonna be a lot easier and even maybe cheaper than coming up with everything......... unless you plan to make a LOT of chow and then sell it....

 

[jrh3]

Tomato plant are toxic

 

[eppcheck]

Not trying to be a downer... but buying the chow from someone like Mulberry is gonna be a lot easier and even maybe cheaper than coming up with everything......... unless you plan to make a LOT of chow and then sell it....

That was my thought when I looked at the ingredients and directions. Then again, I've never tried it out so the difficulty is hard to gauge. Obviously, the more hornworms you are trying to keep the more convenient having your own recipe will be.

 

[alinder450]

I can get most of that stuff at discounted prices. My brother is a chemist and my sister is a pharmacist.

I'm not looking to sell any of it... I just want to share the information.

 

[alinder450]

The problem with raising hornworms is that they ONLY eat plants that, when consumed, make them POISONOUS to our animals...this includes tomato and tobacco plants. So you have to feed them chow.

 

[summoner12]

I was speaking to a local keeper who has been in this hobby for a very long time.... and he said he raised all his HWs on tomato plants........ He said it doesn't mean anything other than he never had an issues...... so....

You should use chow... but maybe with a healthy cham it won't hurt them if the HW eats tomato plants.

 

[Trace]

Only the stems and leaves of the Tomato plant are toxic. Try feeding the actual tomatos if you want a 'natural' food for your worms. However:

Hornworm Chow = Silkworm Chow

It's the same thing at all of the big bug suppliers.

 

[dmaizer]

Only the stems and leaves of the Tomato plant are toxic. Try feeding the actual tomatos if you want a 'natural' food for your worms. However:

Hornworm Chow = Silkworm Chow

It's the same thing at all of the big bug suppliers.

so you can use silkworm chow for hornworms????

 

[SSimsswiSS]

so you can use silkworm chow for hornworms????

Yes. . . . .

 

[fl orchidslave]

Great info! Thanks!

 

[summoner12]

Only the stems and leaves of the Tomato plant are toxic. Try feeding the actual tomatos if you want a 'natural' food for your worms. However:

Hornworm Chow = Silkworm Chow

It's the same thing at all of the big bug suppliers.

Yes the 'big bug suppliers' use silk chow for horn worms. But the chow isn't the same. Yes horn worms eat silk chow, but it's because they aren't as picky as silkworms are about their food. You offer horn worm chow to a silk and it won't eat it.

So when you see horn worm chow for sale, it is going to be different than the silk chow.

It is only a two way street for the silk chow, but not the horn worm chow.

so you can use silkworm chow for hornworms????

Yes.

 

[dmaizer]

thanks!!!!

 

[ColorCham427]

Greatlake's chow is a wheat germ base. Other distrubitors I'm assuming get ther wheatgerm based chow from Rob (greatlakeshornworm)...

The tan colored chow is the stuff I am talking about. Smells a lot better than that green stuff in my opinion lol.

 

[summoner12]

I believe the tan chow doesn't have chlorophyll in it.... so the worms turn blue instead of green.

 

[alinder450]

Anyone know a good recipe for silkworm chow?

 

[Chameleon Bazaar]

Mulberry farms says they use tomato and tobacco for their chow. not sure if thats all thats in it or not. and obviously tomato is not entirely 'poisonous'

 

[camshaft]

do you think they'd turn pink or red if only fed tomato?