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I have read the care sheets on caring for silkworms...but I'm still confused (typical for me). The first order I made was for the container that is set up to maintain the worms. This order I set up a small plastic container and ordered the worms and food separate. I had alot of die off...so obviously I'm not doing something right. I put them on the bottom of the container and shredded food on top. The care sheet said to let the food dry out before adding the next layer. I could not get the food to dry out - too much food? - temps (70degrees)? - humidity? If it is humidity I don't know how to fix it - I live in the Seattle area and it is rainy! Am I supposed to put anything else in the container besides the worms and food? How often should I get the old food and poop out (and how). Please share your thoughts and set-ups if you have silkies. Thanks.

I keep silkworms full time. When I started doing this I had a lot of die off too. It just takes a little practice to figure out what to do.

First off I never separate the silkworms from their poop any more. Every time I did this before I had a die off. I also never put them in a closed container. I do use incubators set to 75 but this time of year that is not necessary. You also should get a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

For containers I use the ziplock large rectangular food containers. If I order 100 silkworms, I split the order into 2 containers. This may seem like a lot of space but it won't be when the silkworms grow enough to be good feeders. I clean the containers and then wipe them with the alcohol and dry them. I also wipe and dry any knife or grater I use with the alcohol too. You should also wash your hands very well prior to touching their food or the silkworms. I then grate the food on top of the containers. I use a very fine grater when they are small. You need to put in enough food that they will have eaten pretty much all of it in one day. Too much food will go moldy in a few days and kill the worms. I generally feed one container every day and one every other day. You will see that the more you allow them to eat the faster they will grow and 100 big silkworms will spin cocoons long before you can feed them out unless you have a lot of dragons.

As I said I never put the tops on the containers. I just rest them on top at a 90 degree angle so that maybe the container is 1/2 covered. I have read to cover for a little while but this just never worked for me. I now never have a mold problem.

Also, once you take a silkworm out never put it back if your dragon does not eat it.

Silkworms are a great feeder. The only downside is that there is a lot of moisure in a silkworm and you will notice it in your dragons poop. I wouldn't feed them exclusively. I also feed hornworms, superworms (to adults only), crickets, and occasionally roaches.

The following was copied from a posting back in January. There's good information here if you want to consider breeding your own. The only thing I do different is cover a 20L terrarium with brown postal paper that I put all the moths in to mate. They lay the eggs on the paper and then I cut it to where there's about 50 eggs on each piece before refrigerating.

Oh, the moths cannot fly but they can climb glass. So you'll need a top.

LdyPayne's posting is as follows:

silkworms are easy to care for. The hardest part though, is ensuring they stay as clean as possible. Silkies are very vulnerable to bacteria and can easily die off it not cleaned regularly or exposed to any mold. Humidity can wipe them out too (humidity promotes mold and their droppings can mold very fast). Hence it is always good to wash your hands with a mild soak or anti-bacterial soap before handing the worms (make sure all traces of the soak are washed off though...and I don't think that Purell stuff would be good, the fumes may harm the silkworms). Or use sterile rubber gloves. WHen you are feeding the worms to your bearded dragon though, you can just pick them up and offer them to the dragon. It is more moving the worms from their web covered/left over food, poop covered container into a new one.

It is also a good ideal not to smoke in the same room the silkworms, as I heard smoke can kill them as well. (I didn't know this fact myself..which makes me glad I don't smoke in my apartment).

Other than making sure you keep them as clean as possible (they don't have to be sterile, but as clean as possible), all the care that is needed is feeding them silkworm chow (or fresh mulberry leaves (washed of course) daily. They do well at most room temperatures, from 70-80F. A bit cooler they take longer to grow, hotter and they probably die...not sure on how high of heat they can tolerate, but I don't think it's much higher than 85F).

Once the worms get about 3" long, they will coccoon. Remove the cocoons and place them in another bin separate from the rest of the worms. In about 10-14 days the coccoons break open and the moths come out (long years of domestication has rendered these moths incapable of flying). Males tend to be smaller than females but if not sure, put two moths together and if they are of mixed sexes, they will pair up in a few minutes. Once paired up you can move them into a small kritter keeper, brown paper bag (the sandwich sized paper bags). Once the male detaches, you can either put him in with another female, or feed him to your dragon.

THe moths do not have to be fed. They have no mouth parts. Their sole purpose in life at this stage is to breed and lay eggs, after that, they die. Once moths, they live about 2-4 days. Males tend to last longer than females.

Once you have eggs (lunch bags are handy in you can just cut open the bags and around the egg clusters. Lining Kritter keepers with wax paper works pretty well too, though the eggs to tend to fall off. But it is much easer to get the eggs off the wax paper than the sides of the kritter keeper though. Leave the eggs out at room temperature for about 4-5 days till they turn a dark purplish color. Once this color, refrigerate for 2-12 months. After 2 months you can take eggs out and let them hatch, the rest you can leave in the fridge for a year. After a year, they don't hatch as well.

Once the eggs are out of the fridge, it takes about 10 days for them to hatch, depending on your room temperature. Cooler temps take a bit longer, warmer temps less time is needed.

After the eggs hatch, use a cheeze grater to 'grate' chow over the silkworms. They should be fed no more than 24 hours after they hatch. Every day, grate more chow over the worms...they will climb over the new food as it is added.

Once the worms are big enough to safely handle without fear of squishing them (typically when they are about an inch long) move them to a clean environment, separate by size, or just to have smaller groups to feed. Or if you need to make more eggs, separate a group to grow to full size and start cycle again.
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PHLdyPayne

seems like way too much to worry about for a silkworm. i use them for feeders, but just buy what i need locally. personally my staple insect is now roaches. BLVDR i see you said occasional roach, why may i ask? roaches are the one of the best feeders for dragons, 100x better than crickets. and they are the easiest to breed as well.
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Beach Beardies

2.4. bearded dragons
1.0. Turquoise x Sunburst Veiled Chameleon
1.1. Sugar Gliders
0.2. Felines *queen athena and missy*

Once you get it down, I feel silkworms are the easiest to care for. No cleaning, they don't climb or escape from a dish etc. Roaches like crickets need a clean environment and you have to manage them. I can't buy silkworms locally, have to mail order them. So the eggs save money. Mulberry sent me a very generous 200 (more like 500) last month, more than I could feed out. With about 100 cocoons I have thousands of eggs. About a years supply so I only have the do the cocoons and eggs once a year. But again it is easy.

Some day I might keep roaches full time. We'll see. Where I live there is at least 2 shows a month (last month was 3) so I pretty much buy them as treats right now.

Since BDlvr was so nice to cut and paste one of my old posts about silkworm care, I won't waste time repeating it.

One thing I do want to add is high humidity is not good for silkworms. There are a few ways to deal with it, if you have high humidity in your house. One, buy a dehumidifier and place it in the room the silkworms are in. Two, use a very well ventilated container. A screen draped over a rubbermaid container may work best. Silkworm poop can also grow mold if damp and this will kill the silkworms faster than moldy food. It may be necessary to weekly or twice a week, remove all the silkworms from their dirty cage and put them into a clean cage. Do this with latex gloves or after washing your hands with a disinfectant soap or alcohol (make sure fumes etc are well gone).
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PHLdyPayne

Thanks everyone! I'm on the right track, just need to fine tune. Do you think 70 degrees in the house is okay? While on the subject of temps. - I'm going to order some roaches - are they okay at 70 degrees?

not sure about the silk worms, but i know for roaches they need a warmer temp. to breed them well they need temps 85 or so if i remember correctly. to survive 70-75 would be fine.
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Beach Beardies

2.4. bearded dragons
1.0. Turquoise x Sunburst Veiled Chameleon
1.1. Sugar Gliders
0.2. Felines *queen athena and missy*

70 is fine for Silkworms. They'll just grow a little slower. It would be too cool to get eggs to hatch most likely though.

Silkworms should be fine at that temps, as for roaches it depends on what your getting. I have orange spotted roached (Dubia Blaptica -or something like that- ) and 70-75 is ok but they'll breed and grow slower, 80-85 is the best temps for breeding and growing.You don't wanna disturb them otherwise a pregnant female will drop he egg sack and most likey won't hatch.

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1.0.0 Bearded Dragon (Rex- "normal" orange fire)
1.0.0 Bearded Dragon (Glutany- German Giant Mix)
0.1.0 Okeetee Corn (Okatee)
1.1.0 Spotted Python (Hotdog and Shoelace)