Reptile & Amphibian Forums

...just curious how you made out with your all your silkworm eggs?? Find yourself doing a lot of cooking and cleaning? lol
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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

Chameleon Help & Resource Info

Hi there, I've hatched around 250 babies! They were sooo tiny. I have 10 bins made up for them and there are still around 250 more to hatch! ALL of them were fertile. I'm "trading" some to my local petshop this weekend in exchange for some books about Meller Chameleons. They do grow FAST and eat alot!! But I've got some that are almost 1 week old and my brothers baby flapneck just loves them! Rana (that's my baby girl) has had a few, but I think she likes the excitement of the hunt with her crickets. I won't even show them to Stitch, he'll think they are Rosemary's babies!!! But we have a pretty organized operation going on, so things are not too crazy. My brother enjoys watching them and feeding them. He was threating to call the labor board on me because he said he pulled a muscle grading all the food with my very small cheese grader!! I think the hardest part is moving them around after they hatched. I was trying to set everyone up in the bins, but they are still pretty small and I don't want to hurt any.
I didn't realize how many people I know that have reptiles, but I have people calling me asking me if I'm going to sell them. I told them no, but if they bought the food and have it made I'll let them just have some. It's been pretty fun and so far everyone has homes!
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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

Sounds like you're all set! Good thing that you can feed them off at different stages. As for moving you can just lay them on the food and let them go. Have you seen the pix on Joe's silkwormfarm.com site? I juist had a pair mate today and when finished I offered the male to Luna - she spit it out after shooting! She's silly!

I love watching caterpillars! In the summer, when I have all my Wild Silks feeding, I sometimes find myself just watching and losing total track of time. I can actually hear the polyphemus crunch as they eat oak leaves! Ok, this is not the moth forum!

have fun!
Link

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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

Chameleon Help & Resource Info

Ya so far we are set.... we'll see. I didn't get a chance to feed any to Stitch. I only had 4 males out of the 15 or so that hatched, and the females were plump, but had alot of wing, I didn't want to devistate him. I had one male who was about 1/2 inch long, who fathered about 3/4 of the eggs!! My brother called him Mac Daddy, since he had a way with the ladies! He lived for about a week! I had a few moths that never came. The babies are moving around more now then they were this weekend, I thought a lot of them were dead, but when we put food on them, they started moving and they eat alot for being soooo little!! I'm not sure if I'll do it again looking at my eggs now, I think I have more then 250 left.. oops
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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

Feenie what would I need to do to get some of those silkies off of you?

Thanks
Nez

Okay, break it up you two! This isn't the bug forum!
BTW- did you guys here about the recent exotic mantid ban? The USDA claims that they're simply enforcing a law 'that was already in place'. I say that this is another nail in the coffin for the keeping of exotic insects by private citizens. Discrimination I tell ya!
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi.tripod.com/sdchamkeepers/
gomezvi@yahoo.com

what is the reason for the ban? I know you and I have discussed this before, but what needs to be remembered is that when exotic organisms (mantids to snakes to wild boars to plants!) are introduced into a system where they are not indigenous and have no natural predators (insects, pathogens, etc.) they can cause very serious problems to the indigenous species and ecosystems. It is typically only a small percentage that do, but they more than make up for the ones that don't. The aquatic plant milfoil is absolutely devastaing lakes in NH (and elsewhere) and it was introduced from poeple dumping aquariums down toilets and/or into bodies of water. The brown tree snake in Guam has wiped out virtually all the bird species on the island.

Sorry, Victor, don't mean to be so serious here but I think you might recall that the issue of invasive species (mainly plants and parasitic insects - those that attack Lepidoptera) is a "passion" of mine. The "remedy" for many of these outbreaks are the use of biocides which impact other species int he system, such as native birds, reptiles, fish, etc.

I know YOU wouldn't let a mantid escape and it possibly would not have a negative impact, but the laws are there as a prevention. that said...I agree that some may seem extraneous but if you look at the impacts of some (go to APHIS website, invasivespecies.gov, etc.) the devastation cannot be ignored.

OK - I'm stepping off my soapbox
Link

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0.1 Veiled - Luna
1.0 Beardie - (soon! For now his name is Kinky Boy )
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

Chameleon Help & Resource Info

The reasons for the laws and regulation that are in place are to prevent alien (and possibly invasive) species from gaining ground in an environment where they can wreak havoc. As far as I know, weather is enough of a factor to keep exotic mantids from establishing themselves in the event that some were inadvertantly released into the environment.
The USDA has taken it upon themselves to enforce laws and regulations that 'have been on the books' for a number of years. However, these regulations refer to alien species that are intended for release into the environment and are not aimed at the pet trade.
There are other forums that have discussed this issue. Forums that cannot be mentioned in kingsnake. You may know of other arachnid forums or insect forums at other sites. I'd suggest looking into those forums for a deeper discussion.
I think they were also looking at banning giant millipedes.
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi.tripod.com/sdchamkeepers/
gomezvi@yahoo.com