Silkworms take my stress away!

[ms_ramie22]

I was under the assumption that you were not supposed to gut load with carrots because of the vitamin A, especially for chameleons. I forget exactly what it was, but I used to use carrots alot for gut load until I read the vitamin A thing. Can anyone help refresh my memory?

 

[kinyonga]

Carrots contain provitamin A or beta carotene...which is converted by the body to vitamin A. Generally, it can not cause an overdose of vitamin A because whatever is not used/converted by the body passes through it.

Preformed vitamin A (retinol) is usually from animal sources...its "ready to go" and doesn't need to be converted...thus preformed vitamin A can build up in the system.

The catch is that its not certain whether chameleons can convert beta carotene to vitamin A...so they may need the preformed vitamin A.

 

[Tygerr]

Kinyonga said..."The catch is that its not certain whether chameleons can convert beta carotene to vitamin A...so they may need the preformed vitamin A."
So the risk of feeding silkworms a diet of carrots is that they may end up containing too much beta carotene, which - unprocessed in the cham's body - could lead to hypervitaminosis (as has been suggested could result if carrots were fed directly to the chameleon)? Or would the digestive process of the silkworm negate the ultimate effect to the cham?
Given that we don't have much scientific data to back this up, what is your opinion on this Kinyonga? Carrots in or out?

Also, that leads to my second question... Almost all the sites selling silkworms say that you can only feed them mulberry leaves or mulberry chow. I've done extensive Googling on this topic (mainly because it has been so difficult to obtain the chow, and because it's so awkward to go raiding leaves all the time). Some sources suggest that wild silkworms will eat any plant matter, and that cultivated silkworms are only fed mulberry leaves to ensure that the silk they produce is pure white.
I have witnessed silkworms eating hibiscus within my cham's cage.
I haven't been experimenting with the silkworms' diet simply because I'd been told mulberry was the way to go, and because I'm worried that silkworms fed on any other diet may not be nutritious to the cham.
So what experience do keepers have using alternative silkworm diets?
What would the long term effects of feeding say, romaine lettuce, be on the silkworms or ultimately on the cham's health?

 

[lele]

Some sources suggest that wild silkworms will eat any plant matter, and that cultivated silkworms are only fed mulberry leaves to ensure that the silk they produce is pure white.

I will let K address your other question for now since I have only a minute, but did want to point out that there ARE NO WILD SILKWORMS of the Genus species we are referring to here. The wild silk moths e.g. Actias luna, Hyalophora cecropia, Antheraea polyphmeus, Atticus atlas, etc. (you have different species but many same genus (and a lot more) in S. Africa than we do in the states) are in the family Saturniidae and do produce silk (all caterpillars produce some even if it is just to secure their bodies inside a pupal shell) but it is not used industry wide yet many use it in smaller quantities. The ones we use as feeders are in the family Bombycidae and the silkworms are Bombyx mori. These have been cultivated for centuries as I mentioned in previous post (#325) have a fascinating history(!) and are only raised by humans.

As for alternative foods...mulberry (Morus spp., thus the species name) IS their main diet, and was WHEN they were wild. and produce strong white or yellow silk when fed on it. Most in Sericulture (cultivation of silk/silkmoths) will not use chow or other diets b/c it does produce an inferior quality silk (different shades of brown, which is not as desired as it cannot be dyed) (see:Sericulum.com for a discussion of why no chow).

In a pinch you can get by feeding them on carrots, I personally use butternut squash, some lettuces. If used exclusively or for the majority of time for their diet they will often have trouble pupating, spinning and if able to get that far in their life cycle will die within cocoon (more than the usual loss we all experience). If you never try to get them past the larval stage and feed them all off then it almost does not matter what you feed them because you are not looking to produce silk . That said, their are the nutritional issues.

The thing to be VERY careful of if you are using one of the supplemental diet is that their environment does not get/stay too wet as NPV or other virus can easily occur - then you WILL have the die-off that someone (Tyler, I think) mentioned.

OK, gotta run!
lele

 

[jleahl]

Gosh, Chrisandpugs, I wish I'd known about the shredded carrot thing before now! My '100" small silkies ate up their 1/4lb dry food in about 2 1/2 weeks. Of course, they got huge, too...way too big for the brevs...but I traded a bunch for 1000 crickets (that are still going). The rest slowly died of starvation.... I tried to find someone to give them to, but it was cold then, and even though I left a heat pack in the box w/them on the porch, they died before the person came to get them. What a waste! I would have been able to keep them alive w/carrots until I could order more chow, and maybe gotten some eggs out of them.

 

[chrisandpugs]

I'll do a test on shredded carrots with small size Silks!

Ji!
I haven't myself tried the shredded carrots on my silkworms yet only because I still have a lot of Mulberrry mash but remember, per my converstion with Brian(from Mulberry Farms), the silkworms but be at least 1 inch or longer for them to eat the shredded carrots.
I would not start off your small size silkworms that you have using shredded carrots yet until they reach a much bigger size ( I assume that their tiny digestive system is not ready to handle shredded carrots yet.)

However, I'm now tempted to do my own test with half of my batch of small size silkworms and see if they will still survive at that tiny size on shredded carrots.
I'll post my results!!

Christine

 

[Tygerr]

Why not test a batch of young silks with various lettuce varieties too, while you're at it? (Romaine, Cos, etc)

I understand the possible problems a tiny silkworm might have with carrots, but there shouldn't be much difference between mulberry leaves and lettuce leaves, right? (Given of course that they can actually survive off non-mulberry vegetation, but as I've said, I've seen my own worms eating Hibiscus). There might even be a benefit to that from a calcium content POV.

I'm going to take a batch of eggs out the fridge now, and see what what I can come up with...

And BTW, Lele - thanks for all that info earlier. I won't be breeding these ones, nor will I be making silk... - so I think it's worth experimenting with alternative food.

 

[lele]

(Given of course that they can actually survive off non-mulberry vegetation, but as I've said, I've seen my own worms eating Hibiscus).

As I noted in my reply above they will eat other plants but will not be able to complete their life cycle.

I understand the possible problems a tiny silkworm might have with carrots, but there shouldn't be much difference between mulberry leaves and lettuce leaves, right?

the difference is the nutrient value. Lettuce is primarily water and depending on which type may be high in oxalate. Due to it being so watery it can cause loose frass and (again mentioned) if environment and larvae are exposed to too much moisture NPV can set in.

Newly hatched larva (of most species and most definitely of these) have very tiny and soft mouthparts so only the softest of food can be managed. When I began breeding Saturniid moths I lost a whole batch of polyphemus hatchlings b/c I gave them leaves that were too firm.

btw, here is a link of nutritional info for many fruits and veggies that may be helpful Nutrition it's for beardie food but good guidance for general gutload, nutrient value, Ca ratio.

Just my two cents.
lele

 

[Tygerr]

As I noted in my reply above they will eat other plants but will not be able to complete their life cycle.

And like I said, I don't want them to complete their life cycle. I want them to be eaten by a chameleon...

the difference is the nutrient value. Lettuce is primarily water and depending on which type may be high in oxalate.

Yes, lettuce probably isn't the best choice. I'm just trying to think of leaves that I have a steady supply of, or ones that I may even use for my other feeders.
I plan on experimenting with a large variety of food I think. Thanks for that nutritional values link - I'd seen it before, but had somehow misplaced the address. I'll start with the leaves in green first...
And since there is still an ample supply of mulberry leaves on the trees in the surrounding neighbourhoods, I'll keep a control group of worms fed exclusively on mulberry.

I'm sure this sort of experiment has been done before (and much more thoroughly) by scientists, especially those in the silk industry. If anyone can provide me with the findings of such studies, I'd love to see them.

 

[kinyonga]

Tygerr said..."So the risk of feeding silkworms a diet of carrots is that they may end up containing too much beta carotene, which - unprocessed in the cham's body - could lead to hypervitaminosis (as has been suggested could result if carrots were fed directly to the chameleon)? Or would the digestive process of the silkworm negate the ultimate effect to the cham?"...okay...remember, this is only my take on it....the carrots eaten by the silkworms contain beta carotene...which will not build up in a chameleon's system. The question IMHO is, do silkworms process it so that it becomes preformed? If the chameleon eats the silkworm the carrot in its stomach should still contain beta carotene (so, no harm done?)....but has any of it that has passed through the digestive system been converted to preformed and how much?

Here's what I did find regarding vitamin A/carotenoids in silkmoths...
there is some other interesting information regarding calcium in this article too...
"carotenoids were present but minimal or no vitamin A activity was detected in extracts from these samples".
http://www.eznc.org/primosite/show.do?ctx=7795,62370&anav=62388

Note that this site lists deficiencies for a rat's daily requirements..and its not just for silkworms...Deficiencies..."vitamin A (89%)".
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/95016302/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

One more thing...
"Beta-carotene content in mulberry leaves was 29mg/100g"
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache...+AND+"beta+carotene"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca
beta carotene in carrots...
"Vitamin A ...28000 IU "
http://www.botanical-online.com/carrots.htm
Now if I could only correlate the two! Can anyone else convert this??

Tygerr said..."Given that we don't have much scientific data to back this up, what is your opinion on this Kinyonga? Carrots in or out?"...all I can tell you is that I have used carrots as a PART of my gutload for years and not had a problem.

 

[bigian]

where can I get some, or any bugs for that matter, other than wax worms, superworms and crickets??

 

[Brad Ramsey]

From your post on a different thread I'm going to assume you are in Canada.
Here are some links.
http://www.recorpinc.com/pricingcdn.html
http://www.canadianfeeders.com/feeder_insects.html
http://www.canadiansilkworms.com/catalog/
There are several people in Canada on the forums who could be of more help I'm sure.
You should start a new thread asking where to obtain the widest variety of feeders
in Canada.

-Brad

 

[beni]

If anyone knows...Are weeping mulberries also good for feeding silkworms?

By

 

[Jewel]

where can I get some, or any bugs for that matter, other than wax worms, superworms and crickets??

I get mine from http://www.canadiansilkworms.com/catalog/ Brandy has lots of different types of worms and crickets and she is great to deal with.

 

[Julirs]

Today I looked in at my coccooned silkies and moths and noticed the eggs were hatching alredy! I spent an hour picking tiny worms out of a mess of silk threads! Next time I will certainly remove the moths to a wax paper lined container. Otherwise-so easy and no odor-I love these worms and so does my Veiled.