I was wondering how safe it is to feed the commercially available silk and horn worms. The caterpillar breeders are using some kind of feeding media. Does anyone know what's in it?
In college I worked on developing a media for raising monarchs. To prevent mold / bacteria growth you had to add formalin and antibiotics to the media. Are these present in the medias fed to those caterpillars? At the last show I went to, one of the insect venders had some adult moths from the hornworm caterpillars and they had the same deformities I encountered in the monarchs that were raised on medias containing high concentrations of formalin and antibiotics. I know that antibiotics and formalin are also used in the painted lady butterfly kits you can purchase. In my experience medias will mold in a day or two without the addition of the above mentioned preservatives.
-Alice
