Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My silkworms are currently still in the petry dish that the eggs hatched in. They appear to be getting to a size where I should remove them and put them in something new. I am concerned on how I should take the worms out; my thoughts so far have been to put gloves on and just lift up the food, as the food is all stuck together from the silk and in a circle form from the petry dish, and place it in something bigger and place new food beside it...hopefully the worms will move to the new food and then I can take away the block of old food.

What other ways have people done this?

Hi - if you flip it over you will likely kill many of your caterpillars. They are extremely fragile at this stage and should not be handled. You can keep them in the same container for quite a while and just use a small cheese grater (small grating holes) to provide food for them. Much will fall on top of them but they will come up - just don't "bury" them!

Another method is to have another container sterile and ready then use something thin and flat (index card or other) and lift out like a spatula would lift pancakes. You still need to be VERY careful. Silkies produce a lot of silk during their whole larval stage and in the first few instars it creates a pad of silk paths that connects them all and can get quite tangled when handled.

Hope this helps, let me know if I need to clarify. I recently wrote an article for ChamNews on rearing silkies (see link) and you can checkout silkwormfarm.com's forum and caresheet as well.

lele
silkworms

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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
0.3 Mad. Hissers (2 died ;(
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula (no name yet)
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha

Hi Lele,

My silkie eggs have been incubated for about a week now, would you happen to have any pictures of what they look like when they first hatch?? I read that they are very small and I just don't want to miss any. Let me know
Thanks
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Feenie

1.1 vieled cham.- Stitch and Chloe
2.2 Canines Junior-pitbull chiuahuah mix, Jose- chiuahuah, Pearl- Staffie, and Daisy- Red nose Pit- foster child
1.0 boyfriend- Trent species unknown

Did they turn dark gray first? If they stayed yellow then they were not fertile - did you mate adults or get the eggs from someone? Sue Kayton has a pic on her site. Her whole site is really good! here you go...
newly hatched silkies

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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
0.3 Mad. Hissers (2 died ;(
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula (no name yet)
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha

Yes they ALL turned gray. I have about 500 of them. I missed the part about refrigerating them I have all the chow ready and they are in about 4 different containers, so I'm guessing anyday now. Also, I was wondering, I bought the silkworms on Feb 13th and they were 2 weeks old, there is still one that has not spun a web, but he still eats everyday and moves around real slow, whats the longest you ever had a silk "worm"??
Thanks for the link!!!
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Feenie

1.1 vieled cham.- Stitch and Chloe
2.2 Canines Junior-pitbull chiuahuah mix, Jose- chiuahuah, Pearl- Staffie, and Daisy- Red nose Pit- foster child
1.0 boyfriend- Trent species unknown

I have a couple of mullberry trees in my backyard. I was wondering if it would be possible to find silk worms naturally on them in the summer?

Thanks
Nez

Hi Nez,

Nope. The silkworms that we raise as feeders are the same ones that are used in the silk industry. They have been raised by humans for centuries which has resulted in them being flightless (they develop wings but cannot fly) and some other biological changes (sort of instant, human-induced evolution) where they are totally dependent on us and are found nowhere in the wild anymore - kind of sad, huh?

However, if you have large, healthy, established trees that have absolutely not been spryed with any chemicals you can save yourself some $$ by feeding them the leaves. They can be sleeved outdoors directly on the trees (see my article on chamnews.com) but only in very warm climate or you can just pick the leaves and feed them directly.

lele
silkie rearing

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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
0.3 Mad. Hissers (2 died ;(
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula (no name yet)
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha

You are going to need a lot of chow!!! - and a lot of time! Are you only feeding two chams? You may have so many you will be forcing them on your boyfriend and dogs! LOL!! You could try putting some in the fridge now as you will probably not be able to feed off anywhere near that many and lose them anyway. Depending on the point in their maturation, you may be able to chill some successfully. If you take a hand lens and the encasement is transparent it is probably too late, but if opaque you might risk it. Remember, all you need to do is keep a handful of adults to mate and have hundreds more – just next time, be sure to chill soon after they have changed color.

As for the larva, they typically spin in about 4 weeks. I occasionally have some pokey ones, but they usually spin up, though sometimes they die. If you want to speed him up a bit give him some warmth. You can put him in a smaller, separate container and then put on fridge, on top of strip light. Not to fry, just a bit more warmth. Lepidoptera in general can have very varied rates of growth. When I raise my wild silks, they will all hatch within 2-3 days of each other but can have a difference of weeks(!) between pupating. The growth changes are triggered by a hormone called "juvenile hormone" and as it decreases, they go thru the various instars and into pupation. In nature, the varied timings are a survival mechanism .

OK, probably a lot more than you wanted to know...!!
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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
0.3 Mad. Hissers (2 died ;(
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula (no name yet)
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha

Yup, but I have help! I have a nanny to help me. No actually it's my little brother, he's pretty excited about it, and I have a local petstore that will take them off my hands after they are about a week old. I don't think they will all hatch at the same time, some of them are clear in the middle, others are still turning gray, so I'll have some time in between to get my barrings. Should be fun!! I have about 4 pounds of chow that I need to make and a pound made and waiting!! I'm just nervous because they are soooo tiny when they hatch. But my brother has a very baby flapneck chameleon (no more then 4 weeks old) and I have my girl who is about 4 months old, so I'm sure they will be consuming them too!!
If not I'll have to come up with a good creme de' silkie soup for my boyfriend, and maybe some silk-bones for the dogs!!
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Feenie

1.1 vieled cham.- Stitch and Chloe
2.2 Canines Junior-pitbull chiuahuah mix, Jose- chiuahuah, Pearl- Staffie, and Daisy- Red nose Pit- foster child
1.0 boyfriend- Trent species unknown