Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Have never fed silkworms but they look interesting. Do the leopards become hooked on them as they do on waxworms? Any input appreciated. Dan

Hi

They are an excellent food source and something you could feed them as a staple diet. They are very neutritious and come in second only to crickets.

I have some on there way to me now.

Take Care, TLB

Thanx for the response. My main concern is that if i run out of silkworms they will be hard to switch back ( like waxies ).

Hi

You can't feed waxworms as a staple diet because they are to high in fat content and not that neutritous.

I ran out of silkworms and didn't reorder and went back to crickets for awhile and they did just fine for me going back.

Take Care, TLB

Hi

Here is a web page that will tell you the nutrional value of the different bug that we feed out geckos.

http://www.anapsid.org/resources/preynutrients.html

Take Care, TLB

Thanks! That's what I was concerned about. Don't ever run out of crix and feed waxies for a week. I made that mistake once.

Second to crickets? Actually, silkworms are far superior to crickets in every respect, the only reason most people don't use them is because they tend to be pretty expensive.

Here's another prey nutrition breakdown. I have to wonder, when these breakdowns are in disagreement, just which ones are correct:

http://www.michaelthorn.com/cfhs/vet/insect1.html
(This site seems to go down randomly, if it's not up when you check, wait a day and try again).

M. Kaplan's site shows mealworms as having a higher calcium than phosphorus level, and I'm pretty sure that's not right.