Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm planning on breeding Horn worms for my bearded Dragons. I was wondering if anyone makes their own horn worm chow? I'm breeding crickets and prefer to make my own cricket food to ensure that they are getting to right supplements so i anted to know if its better in the long run to find out whats in it and make it myself or order it from one of the suppliers.

Thanks in advance DHop

Given how much of a specialized diet hornworms (and silkworms for that matter, though they are easier in the fact their natural food (mulberry leaves) isn't toxic) it probably is far cheaper and easier to just use the chow.

Hornworms in the wild feed on tobacco and tomato plants, both of which contain a toxin in their leaves. Wild hornworms are toxic to most animals, including reptiles and birds. The hornworms used as feeders are fed the chow, which is specially formulated to meet their needs without having the toxin (not sure if its the plants with toxins extracted in some way, they dried into a powder (which when prepared, has water added into it and cooked in the microwave) or if they just mixed the same nutrients normally found in the plant matter.)

Breeding hornworms do take some work as well. Unlike silkworms they require plants with plenty of leaves to lay their eggs (usually a few eggs per leaf) and the moths fly quite well so you need to accommodate their needs far more than with silkworms. There was some detailed instructions on how to do this earlier in the bearded dragon forum. A search should find it without too much difficulty.
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PHLdyPayne

I do breed hornworms and I use the commercial diet.

There are some hornworms chow recipes available online that are safe to use, but I calculate the costs and trouble to make it, and I finally decided to buy it because it was not worth it.

These are the links:
http://www.entm.purdue.edu/Entomology/outreach/recipe/manduca.diet.htm

http://manduca.entomology.wisc.edu/resources/setupclassroom.html

This diet is similar to the yellow or the red one on the market because the base of the diet is wheat germ.

There is also an other version of the chow wich is green and really looks like the silkworms chow...and smells like it too! So I think this green chow is also made from mulberry leaves, but maybe adapted to hornworms with something else in it. That's the one I'm using right know, but I used the yellow one in the past.

If I'm not mistaken, the wild hornworms are toxic because they eat tomato and tobacco leaves wich are toxic for the reptile. So, I think it's because they are gutloaded with toxic leaves that they are dangerous. If you feed them with the commercial diet (or the home made diet), there is no problem.

Hornworms are also going to accept some vegetables, like bell peppers, if you run out of chow, but I don't recommand it because they are going to be gutloaded with something not really nutritive for your reptile.

I hope this helps!
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Lisabeth

1.2 Bearded dragons (Flake, Rusty and Rainbow)
1.1 Uromastyx geyri (Spiky and Salsa)
1.2 Guinea pig (Pumpkin, Moka and Lila)

I have fed my horn worms (purchased) my silk worm food and they love it. I get the chow from Mulberry Farms.

Can you talk more about actually how to breed them?
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www.moonstonedragons.com

Thanks everyone. I think I'm going to go ahead and buy the prepared chow. I'm waiting for them to pupate now. I'm just trying to get everything in order. We'll see what happens. Lisabeth i greatly want to thank u because I followed your info and link for the majority of my research.

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1679691,1680689&key=2009
Link

I'm happy to have helped.
I have an update about what I wrote last time.
Last time, it took 5 weeks to my pupeas to emerge as moths. The second time I did it (recently), it took them only 3 weeks to emerge. I think it's because now it's hotter in my room because it's almost summer. So I guess it depends on temperatures a lot. Also, my moths die faster than the last time (probably again because of the temparature).
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Lisabeth

1.2 Bearded dragons (Flake, Rusty and Rainbow)
1.1 Uromastyx geyri (Spiky and Salsa)
1.2 Guinea pig (Pumpkin, Moka and Lila)