strict worm diet

[dudeman728]

if i were to go on a strict worm diet, what variety of worms compliment each other best? i know that silkies can be a staple, but buying them all the time can be expensive. i plan to try and breed them, but even so, a variety is always the best bet so i was just wondering if any of you have a certain feeding schedule with your worms. thanks for the help!

 

[graydon]

Worms are very fatty. Most people would not recommend a strictly worm diet. Variety is best.

 

[sandrachameleon]

I agree with the above - a Wide variety of insects is best, and IMO a worm only diet is not. There is no good reason to limit prey choice to larva.

That said, silkies would be the best staple worm to choose. they are least fatty of the larva commonly available. use fresh mulberry leaves if you can much of the time, and other fresh greens and veg along with the cooked chow to gutload the silkies
It would be important to add a gutloaded superworm (if larva are the only options) periodically, for the chinton (too little is almost as bad as too much). There are some folks who use supers as the staple, sometimes saying (rightly or wrongly) that they have no choice. I dont recommend emulating this. Very high in fat. But at least you can somewhat gutload them.

Adding hornworms, butterworms, cabbage loppers and others now and then couldnt hurt.


Check out this blog entry (scroll past the gutloading bit). there are links to nutritional content of various bugs, including worms.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/75-feeder-nutrition-gutloading.html

 

[dudeman728]

ah ok thanks for the advice. it was only a thought that i had because they are much more easier to care for than crickets and im not sure if im ready for roaches yet. If this is the case, how many worms should i feed cooper a week? would one a day while alternating different worms per day as well as adding his fare share of crickets be ok or is that too still too many worms?

 

[sandrachameleon]

ah ok thanks for the advice. it was only a thought that i had because they are much more easier to care for than crickets and im not sure if im ready for roaches yet. If this is the case, how many worms should i feed cooper a week? would one a day while alternating different worms per day as well as adding his fare share of crickets be ok or is that too still too many worms?

Silkworms and crickets are about equal on the amount of care provided to them. So I doubt you'd gain much in that respect. Supers are easy, but like I said not your best option. Bugs higher in calcium and protein, not so high in fat, are probably better in the long run.
A diet made of half various worms and half various other things is likely fine.

there are options beyond roaches and crickets too. I dont know what country riverside is in, or what your local restrictions might be, but options might include: stick insects, terrestrial isopods, locusts, multiple types of roaches, termites, moths, flies, ....

 

[warpdrive]

ah ok thanks for the advice. it was only a thought that i had because they are much more easier to care for than crickets and im not sure if im ready for roaches yet. If this is the case, how many worms should i feed cooper a week? would one a day while alternating different worms per day as well as adding his fare share of crickets be ok or is that too still too many worms?

unlike some others, I totaly disagree that raising silkworms are easyer or even the same as raising crickets.
when it comes down to it, at least for me, raising 100 crickets are far easyer then raising 100 silkies.

I have about 250-500 crickets on hand at any given time, and to me they are quite simple to care for as long as you follow a few rules.
my crickets don't stink. are well gutloaded on a wide variaty of greens as well as vegies/fruits.
they are healthy, and i have little to no die offs.
and all they require of me is to give them food once or twice a day, and maybe 5 mins of cleaning twice per week at the most.
I would say my total time for care per week of crickets is only 30 mins total...that includes feeding.

when it come to silkworms (and I know I over care for them at times), I normaly spend as much as 20 mins per day for normaly far less worms.

again, maybe it's just me, but crickets are way too easy as long as you don't keep food for 5 days rotting in their tub and you take the time to clean out the poop every 3 days or so.

just my two cents

Harry

 

[jadeaudio]

I agree. I have tried silkies twice. 1st time wasn't so bad because they were bigger, but I ran out of mulberry leaves and they died. The 2nd time I ordered small ones from Mulberry farms and they all died as they molded in that dish they give you within 3 days. But then again it just probably takes a few tries to understand what you can do with them as I had problems with crickets at 1st also. I had so many die offs everyday, but once it started to get cold out I took them out of the garage and put them in a tall tank inside and I never get die offs. I think they just needed a more consistent ambient temperature rather than the aggressive change in temps from morning to night. And of course awesome gutload of cricket crack helped also. I'm still breeding dubia's so I haven't fed off any yet. Superworms are by far the easiest to have. They last forever and when I put them on the screen of the cage they move fast which the chams love. Hornworms are awesome too, but it's tough to use them all up before they are too big and you can only use them for a week or so. All other worms besides the 3 I mentioned I have tried, but are too small unless you are cup feeding. Phoenix worms just scurry so fast that they only stay on foilage for a few seconds before they hit the bottom of the cage which as most people know the chams never eats from. I have not tried butterworms yet.

 

[Courtney]

i cant stand roaches either...we got 10 adult lobster and i love them they are nada like the ones that run full speed to get away from the can of raid in the middle of the night. plus you know they are safe in their bin. they dont smell or make noise and the albino lobster are very pretty!!!!! i just put on a disposable hospital glove and grab one....

 

[warpdrive]

I'm not sure where you live Jade, but yeah, both crickets and silkies need temps of at least 72F, or above for them to do well.
for most that means keeping them inside, out of the cold.

my biggest beef with phoenixworms is that they must be cup fed like you stated.
yet they are not that bad for young or baby chams.
butters are also easy in that you don't even have to feed them, and they last in the fridge for like 2 months.

on the other hand, silkies are a great feeder.
as Sandra pointed out they can at times eat other foods besides just mulberry leafs and chow.
yet they still don't eat the wide variaty of foods that crickets and roaches do, and as a reasult are just not as good IMHO.
between constant cleaning to prevent mold buildup at times, and constantly having small ones die off from getting traped in the silk, it take alot of work to keep them going.
for me, that was about 20 mins a day to keep 90% of them alive and well.
personaly, that is way too much time for just some worms. so I don't think I'll ever buy 100 smalls again.
(and yes, you will need to constantly trancfer then to a larger and larger enclosure as that stupid dish thing that mulberry farms sends them in is not good enough to raise them in.)
to combat mold growth you need to keep them well ventalated, but that doesn't stop all the mold from building up if you skip a day or two on your cleaning/care.

again, maybe it's just me, but silkies are just alot of work for just a few worms.
not saying that I'll never use them again, but next time I'll only get a small cup of them and not 100 at a time like the last two or three times that I ordered them.

Harry

 

[Crazy Pet Lady]

unlike some others, I totaly disagree that raising silkworms are easyer or even the same as raising crickets.
when it comes down to it, at least for me, raising 100 crickets are far easyer then raising 100 silkies.

I have about 250-500 crickets on hand at any given time, and to me they are quite simple to care for as long as you follow a few rules.
my crickets don't stink. are well gutloaded on a wide variaty of greens as well as vegies/fruits.
they are healthy, and i have little to no die offs.
and all they require of me is to give them food once or twice a day, and maybe 5 mins of cleaning twice per week at the most.
I would say my total time for care per week of crickets is only 30 mins total...that includes feeding.

when it come to silkworms (and I know I over care for them at times), I normaly spend as much as 20 mins per day for normaly far less worms.

again, maybe it's just me, but crickets are way too easy as long as you don't keep food for 5 days rotting in their tub and you take the time to clean out the poop every 3 days or so.

just my two cents

Harry

How do you clean the cricket cage without them getting out all over? They seem to be always in the way of any cleaning I try.

 

[dudeman728]

How do you clean the cricket cage without them getting out all over? They seem to be always in the way of any cleaning I try.

I agree. i dont know an easy way to clean the cricket cage without them jumping everywhere while doing a thorough job.

thanks for the advice everyone and ill probably use use crickets everyday while alternating between silkies and superworms. hopefully i can find butterworms somewhere local but if not then thats ok too

 

[warpdrive]

How do you clean the cricket cage without them getting out all over? They seem to be always in the way of any cleaning I try.

hi crazy pet lady,

I've been thinking of putting together a cricket care type post, or at least how I do things.

to keep it simple, and sadly without photos at this time, here is what I do...

first, I use a 10 gal fish tank with a screen top, and NOT a plastic tub or bin.
this gives me two areas...a feeding area and a nesting area.
the nesting area is filled with a few egg crate pieces (just some riped up pieces or whatever my crickets come with in the mail).
the feeding area only has a small item I use as a feeding plate...it's a plastic lid from a food container, that I cut the center out to remove the rim.

this plastic food dish again is just a flat piece of plastic and is used in two ways. not only is it used to put food on it, but I also use it to clean the fish tank.


this is how I clean the fishtank or my glass cricket keeper...

about an hour before I feed off some crickets to my chams, I take out the plastic lid (food dish) and dump out any leftover food.
then I start moving all the egg crates to the feeding area of the cage...making sure that I fip over the egg crates so that any poop may fall to the floor of the tank.
sure they will jump all over the place. don't worrie.

you'll find a bunch of cricket poop and other crap now on the bottom of the nesting area.
I then use the feeding dish to scrape all the poop towards the feeding area as best as I can...or as close to all the egg crates that are now in the feeding area.
you will not harm any crickets while they get in your way so just be nasty and disregard them at this time.

now that all the poop is in the feeding area as best as you can, start putting the egg crates back to the nesting area.
once that is done you'll have alot of cricket poop in the center of the fishtank, slightly in the feeding area.
sure there will me hundreds of crickets going crazy all over, but keep scraping the poop all the way to the far wall away from the nesting area.
just pile it up...yes crickets will be running all over this pile of poop and will be getting in your way.

now is the hard part...I start scooping out the poop that I piled up, all while letting any crickets that is on the feeding dish to have some time to jump off of it.
a finger from my other hand help give them some insentive when they are lazy and wont jump off right away.
in less then 2 mins, I can scrap out all the poop from the whole fishtank. even if they are only 3 week old crickets.
I will say that with 1 or 2 week old crickets you might need to take alittle extra time so that you don't remove any while trying to get rid of the poop.

DON'T WORRIE ABOUT HURTING EVEN 1 WEEK OLD CRICKETS...by scraping the bottom of the tank you'll never be hurting them, just pushing them around.

once the fishtank is cleaned out, I wash the food dish, and add my gutload to it for them to have food to eat.

this can be done the same way with deep tubs or plastic bins, but I find that they are too deep and don't have too much room on the bottom when you have a bunch of glued together egg crates in them like most do here on this forum.
to me, I would only keep no more then 400-500 crickets in such a 10 gal fish tank. if you need more crickets then just use another fishtank. they can be placed next to each other like some do for raising baby chams. so 10 gal fishtanks don't take up alot of space.

while I still might post something of how I care for my crickets (with photos) in the short future, I hope this helped you get an idea of what I do.

Harry