Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anyone ever experience a mass silkworm die off? Two different enclosures even.3 day old silks, and large ones.
I kept these no differently as I always have.
Could food have gone bad, and bacteria killed them?
Yet there is always food in my worm containers, and it's never killed them.
My only other guess. I moved a fresh from quarantine snake into the herp room, and I'm wondering if traces of mite spray could have possibly killed them? Yet there are crickets running all through the room.
Any ideas anyone? In two years of keeping silkworms, this has never happened before.

high humidity can kill silks off quickly..had that happen when I was in a basement appartment. Their poop molded really fast and killed them all. What a mess. It could also be the mite spray, not sure if the silks are more sensitive to it than crickets.

I have never had this happen before. Every last one
( approx 1500) died. Even the newly hatched silks.
I dont have a clue. The concentration of mite spray on the snake would have been so minute, but the die off began right after.
Husbandry conditions were no different than ever before. This has me totally baffled.
How about heat? Would higher than normal temps kill them?

I don't think they like alot of heat, I always kept them at room temperature, rarely above 80F, or lower than 65F. Unless it was old chow or chow that somehow became contaminated.