Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just wanted to know if there was anything else (like a household item/grocery store item)I can feed silkworms. I'm looking to breed them, but only 17 and I can probably only talk my parents into letting me use their card once or twice (and once will be to buy the 250 sildworm starter)

Hoping there's an alternative.
Thanks, Joe

Well I know for sure that when you are low on food that they will eat lettus but whether or not they will grow is still up in the air. There has been at least 1 person that has feed them lettus for 3 days and they were still good. If you look further down the forum there is someone that is actually going to experiment with this and see if they can live on greens. When I place silk worms in my beardie's food bowl they start muching on everything but Idon't know if they could live on greens long term. Not much help I know but I'm looking for that alternitive also.
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0.0.1 Bearded Dragons-Jessie
1.0 Geo 4yr orange munchkin
0.2 Dogs- Wendy 7yr Lab/Tori 4 yr Boxer
3.1 Kids plus Hubby

I first went to mulberry farms and did get 350 plus chow for I think 30dollars. Well my beardie doesn't nearly eat enought of them for me to continue that especially because I have 1 but I am about to get another. I think I still have half here and they are about to get too big for her! I went to herp.com and there I can buy the food with silk worm petri dish eggs at a lower volume and the price included shipping. 8.99 for 25- if I get 2 its 16.99.Beardie right now will only eat 2-3 inch to inch and a half silk worms. She is about 2 and a half months old and 7 and 1/4 inches long. Since she eats her rep-cal and salad I guess she doesn't have enough room to have too much more. Sorry so long.
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0.0.1 Bearded Dragons-Jessie
1.0 Geo 4yr orange munchkin
0.2 Dogs- Wendy 7yr Lab/Tori 4 yr Boxer
3.1 Kids plus Hubby

I'm conducting an experiment right now with various greens to see if they can be used long-term. Link to my site with the experiment is below.
Silkworm Test

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1.0.0 Bearded Dragon (Zeo)
0.2.0 Leopard Geckos (Vienna, Chomps)
1.0.0 Golden Retriever (Rocky, 11 y.o.)

Something else to consider when feeding silkworms other greens is the nutriticional content of the food and thus, the silkworms. Alot of what makes silkworms so good to feed reptiles is their nutritional content which they get from eating mulberry leaves. Feeding them lettace, I am assuming, will drastically change what the silkworm has to offer as a food source.

Testing to see what nutritional value a silkworm raised on kale or other non mulberry green would have to be done by a laboratory specializing on determining the food quality of food. Or so I assume.

Personally, though it does cost a bit extra and there is some minor inconvenience involved, I would rather feed mulberry leaves or the silkworm chow to silkworms and be assured they are just as healthy as they can be for my reptiles. However, I would be interested in learning if silkworms can be fed other mixed greens with high nutritional contents and still maintain their value as a food source.