Reptile & Amphibian Forums

how hard are silkies compared to roaches?

hey Cheri, I'll give you a t-shirt if you eat one of these...

should I name them?

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Bennett

www.beardiedragon.com

n/p

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Rob Talkington

Thank goodness, I could not see any standing up and looking at the camera , LOL

Eve

>>Thank goodness, I could not see any standing up and looking at the camera , LOL
>>
>>
>>Eve

I'll try to put a hat on it too !
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Rob Talkington

I would seriously freak out if I had that many roaches anywhere near me! *brrrrrrrrr* creepy

Harder or not, I'll stick to my silkies! lol!
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1.0.1 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

>>how hard are silkies compared to roaches?
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>>hey Cheri, I'll give you a t-shirt if you eat one of these...
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>>should I name them?
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>>
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>>Bennett
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>>www.beardiedragon.com
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Rob Talkington

rock..... which is were I wished they would stay

Yes, we have them, but I DO NOT look at them, feed them or go near them....... I grew up in Florida and we fought to kill them all the time, raising them seems so alien to me!

I was at Ronnie from Cricketfood.com's house (he raises and sells them) at christmas time and i was fine looking at them til he shook out a tube full of 'em ::::shiver::: that flipped me out! Hundreds fled out of that tube.. it reminded me of an old Twilight Zone show, where the guy would rinse one down the drain and 20 more came up, then he rinsed them down the drain and thousands came up.... UCK!
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www.reptilerooms.com

well, they were promised to me as the easiest to raise and that my lizzards would love them. Well they were a pain to raise and my chameleon (no beardie at the time) didnt like them.

The food: very expensive. I went thru 3 bags of food (15 bux each) to grow 200 worms. In the summer only can you get mulberry leaves.

Raising: They need lots of space when they start cocooning. They poop TONS and it gets all over them and thier food unless you clean it out every time. They are very temperature sensitive. Coccooning was a mess they made coccoons everywhere then when they hatch they spill some kind of red urine that gets on the coccoon next to them and they hatch at diff times. I had moths laying eggs on coccoons that hadnt hatched yet then when they hatched they pooped that crap all over the new eggs. It was a mess. the eggs stuck to everything. I threw most away because my lizzard didnt like them anyway and i couldnt keep feeding the worms.

The roaches eat and drink and have babies. My orange heads seem to be the staple feeder i wanted my worms to be.

np
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Bennett

www.beardiedragon.com

>>well, they were promised to me as the easiest to raise and that my lizzards would love them. Well they were a pain to raise and my chameleon (no beardie at the time) didnt like them.
>>
>>The food: very expensive. I went thru 3 bags of food (15 bux each) to grow 200 worms. In the summer only can you get mulberry leaves.
>>
>>Raising: They need lots of space when they start cocooning. They poop TONS and it gets all over them and thier food unless you clean it out every time. They are very temperature sensitive. I had moths laying eggs on coccoons that hadnt hatched yet then when they hatched they pooped that crap all over the new eggs. It was a mess. the eggs stuck to everything. I threw most away because my lizzard didnt like them anyway and i couldnt keep feeding the worms.
>>
>>The roaches eat and drink and have babies. My orange heads seem to be the staple feeder i wanted my worms to be.

"Raising: They need lots of space when they start cocooning."

I agree to a certain extent. You can cut a toilet paper roll into three sections and have three cocoons in that amount of space. Keep in mind, though you only need a male and female moth to produce 200-500 eggs.

"They poop TONS and it gets all over them and thier food unless you clean it out every time."

I disagree with this. I keep my worms for 85% of their lives without cleaning up the frass any, whatsoever and it does not smell. By the time you actually need to have to clean it up the worms are big enough to pick up and place into a new container. There are also usually not as many as you started out with.

"They are very temperature sensitive."

Again I completely disagree. Mine have been kept successfully from 68 - 85 degrees for the duration of their lives. I have had some under a heat lamp and some without a source of heat and both did fine. The only difference was the cooler ones didn't grow as fast.

"Coccooning was a mess they made coccoons everywhere then when they hatch they spill some kind of red urine that gets on the coccoon next to them and they hatch at diff times."

If you set up the toilet papers as recommended you don't have the cocooning everywhere. I agree the red liquid is pretty disgusting and you have to be careful with that.

"I had moths laying eggs on coccoons that hadnt hatched yet then when they hatched they pooped that crap all over the new eggs."

That is why after three days of the last cocoon being spun in your group you remove all of the coccoons and consolidate them into smaller container. When a moth emerges you place the moth in a seperate container and wait until the opposite sex emerges then place it in with the previous moth. That is when you need to be careful with the urine, which is usually only expelled once per moth.

I used the disposable glad ware containers to place the mating moths in. I have three pairs per container.

"the eggs stuck to everything."

You place a piece of wax paper or a square of cardboard in the container with the mating moths and the females will lay the eggs on the piece of cardboard. You then place the piece of cardboard into plastic baggie in the fridge or into the incubator to start a new batch. After they have mated you can feed the moths to your lizards.

I agree it can be a real mess if you just let the worms do what they want and let them cocoon wherever. But I think with most everything you're trying to raise you can't just let things go with no intervention whatsoever which is what it sounds like you did. Granted I've never raised anything except silkies but from most things I've read there is a little bit of work involved. I believe it's a matter of simply preventing the kind of mess you described.
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Rob Talkington

They poop as much as you feed them. I probabally cleared 4 pounds of black damp pebbles (that does stick to the food) by the time i was done.

Yes they need a lot of attention which was my point. I made lots of little cardboard tubes for them and they completely ignored them. It made me so mad they made thier cocoons on top of each other willy nilly when there were perfectlly good cubby holes.I just dont get it.

They started coccooning when i was at work and you cant just move them when theyve started cocooning. They hatched when i was at work also making it not really possible to separate them before mating. They mate probabally within minutes of hatching.

They need way too much babysitting.

>>They poop as much as you feed them. I probabally cleared 4 pounds of black damp pebbles (that does stick to the food) by the time i was done.
>>
>>Yes they need a lot of attention which was my point. I made lots of little cardboard tubes for them and they completely ignored them. It made me so mad they made thier cocoons on top of each other willy nilly when there were perfectlly good cubby holes.I just dont get it.
>>
>>They started coccooning when i was at work and you cant just move them when theyve started cocooning. They hatched when i was at work also making it not really possible to separate them before mating. They mate probabally within minutes of hatching.
>>
>>They need way too much babysitting.

"They poop as much as you feed them. I probabally cleared 4 pounds of black damp pebbles (that does stick to the food) by the time i was done."

If you have a bunch of big worms then yes, it is a huge PIA but if you only have 10 worms set aside to breed then it's not that difficult.

"Yes they need a lot of attention which was my point. I made lots of little cardboard tubes for them and they completely ignored them. It made me so mad they made thier cocoons on top of each other willy nilly when there were perfectlly good cubby holes.I just dont get it."

I certainly won't argue with a lot of worms they tend to royally piss you off!! But again, with only a few set aside to produce the amount of eggs needed to last you a long time, not near as bad.

"They started coccooning when i was at work and you cant just move them when theyve started cocooning. They hatched when i was at work also making it not really possible to separate them before mating. They mate probabally within minutes of hatching."

Actually, if they have just started cocooning it's the best time to move them to the tubes because then they don't wander anywhere else.

They do mate actually within seconds!!! I have moved mated pairs into the seperate containers w/out a problem. Thing is, they stay mated for at least a day or two which should give you plenty of time to catch them before they start laying.

Believe me when I say I can sympathise with your thoughts on breeding silkies. I have had major problems with them and they have taken a ton of my time but that is with a large number of breeders. If you only take 10 worms set aside to breed, which is all you would need every once in awhile, the whole mess you describe becomes fairly simple.

Again, I'm not disagreeing that what you described isn't exactly right on but the big pain in the ass you describe directly correlates to the amount of worms you are trying to breed ! I do understand you pain, my friend ;E.
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Rob Talkington