Silkworm is a cacoon..!

[KrewElement394]

Wow i never had a silk worm turn itself into a cocoon before! no silkworm of mine ever survived that long anyhow this medium sized silkworm turned itself into a cocoon yesterday it started off with a lot of silk around it, 2 hours later it was like inside a bubble (oval) type thing. now today when i woke up this morning it was an oval silk thing. yesterday it was still visible today it is not! what i am trying to know is how long do they take to emerge? and why arent the big silkworms turning themselves into cocoons? i have about 4 silkworms that are the biggest of them all and are huge and gut-loaded (fat) but they do not seem to turn themselves into cocoons...will they? i know that the moths die after laying their eggs is it safe to feed the moths after they lay their eggs before dying? i know it sounds mean but my cham. never had a moth how long do the eggs take to hatch, and how sure am i that they get fertilized?

thanks

 

[brighteyez]

Did you find out any answers to your questions? I just found one of my silk worms made a cocoon so now I'm wondering the same things.

 

[buick455]

I have about 8 of them that have cocooned. I decided my guy needs more crix and silks then just silks in his diet ( I think he was getting over hydrated, loose skat ) so just 1-2 silks per feeding left me with quite a few left over. I just looked around on the net and found this for a schedule.. 3 days to cocoon, then like 21 to emerge I guess, my oldest cocoon is only 3 days old, lol.. i figure i have time to figure out the next step

http://www.susankayton.com/Silkworms/schedule.htm

 

[kinyonga]

"Silkworm moths emerge from their cocoons after spending about two to three weeks metamorphosing."
http://www.silkwormshop.com/silkworm_info.html

 

[hallenhe]

Mine took a few weeks before emerging, and I did feed them off after egg laying. My particular chameleon was uninterested, but the leopard gecko loved them.

 

[OldSkoolxReasons]

I fyou keep the cocoons at a warmer temperature, I keep them at 82 degrees, they emerge usually in 2 weeks. You just have to make sure the container they are in has some humidity so they don't dry out, but not too much to cause mold and bacteria to thrive. They truly are the easiest feeder to keep and breed in my opinion, the only thing is that in the winter you have to buy chow unless you have a mulberry tree that has leave 365 days a year. The moths will breed second after emergeing from the cocoon. The larger cocoons are almost always female and the smaller are almost always male. the females with have a very soft and bulging abdomen, careful don't squeeze it or they WILL pop and tiny eggs and weird chalk brown colored stuff will get all over your hand, and the male are tiny. The males usually have more developed wings. The females lay anywhere from 50 to over 500 eggs depending on their size. 2 females can produce enough eggs to feed my 11 chams for about a month, that is if I decide to hatch out all the eggs or just refrigerate some of them for later. Good luck with them, I think you'll find them very interesting.



Justin


Also my chams LOVE the moths. I think it is because the wings because as soon as their wings start to flutter they get zapped. Oh and don't worry they can't fly or do much at all, just crawl, breed, and get eaten/die.