Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i would like to start silkworms instead of crickets, right now im getting 1000 crickets a month and its costing $20-24
how much should i expect to be spending on chow for the silks each month?
how long does the chow averagely last?

Hi,

Rearing silkworms cost is going to be in time more than anything. In order to have an ongoing colony, or to at least have viable/fertile eggs in the fridge, requires bringing several of them full cycle from eggs (or larvae) thru pupation, then successful eclosion (emerging from cocoon), mating, collecting eggs. It is not necessarily a difficult thing to do but there can always be die-off and unless cleanliness is utmost you can lose an entire colony.

As for specific costs, there are way too many variables to consider that only can determine. If you are rearing thousands at a time you will go thru a lot of chow, if you are like me and only need provide for a couple critters then chow costs will be low. An average is 100 SW per 1lb of chow.

Keep your crickets going until you have secured a colony of SW and feel comfortable in rearing them. Roaches are another inexpensive, very easy to care for and "meaty"

Here is an article I wrote on rearing silkworms and there are lots of resources at the end. Look it over and see if it is something you want to do.

The three things you need to be vigilant about:

cleanliness
Cleanliness
CLEANLINESS

silkworm rearing

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1.0 Beardie - For now his name is Beardie Boy
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
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Chameleon Help & Resource Info

if you're just going to feed them off then its not that expensive,just by the dry chow,its easy to cook and lasts a good while. in my experience,i've been using them for at least a month now, i first got worms with a 1/2 lb.of wet chow which lasted about 2-3 weeks. more recently i got a 1/2 lb. of dry which made about 2-3 lbs. of wet chow(estimated). im using about 500 large worms a week,thats just for my 2 juvenile females.i've tried all the silkworm vendors on here except for mulberry farms. in my opinion midwest herp offers the cheapest packages but you only get small and medium worms(mostly small-very small!). silkworm farms is reasonable and offers free shipping for orders placed on friday,but i didn't like the way they packaged the worms. california silkworms is who i do business with now because i can order all large worms at same price as small and they have good deals and good packaging. all in all it costs about $30-$35 a week. i still use crickets for my males,they are cheaper but they also stink,they're noisy and they get loose. basically crickets are cheaper but higher maintenance,silkworms are higher cost,higher nutritional value and less maintenance. also no impaction risk!!!

I let a few (7) cocoon last fall--from a purchase I made at California silkworms. I ended up with only 1 female and she laid about 220 eggs. I hatched them out in January (I had stored them in the frige)and they all made it. I waited about 3 weeks before I started feeding them out. I seperated them out according to size (some grow faster than others)into small rubbermaid shoeboxes. I fed the largest groups 2 times a day--and they grew fast! I have 2 adult beardies and they had all the silkworms they could eat for about 6 weeks. I took the largest groups (about 90) and let them cocoon--I just put an egg crate in their boxes...All but 4 spun good coccoons. I removed the cocoons from the eggcrate after a few days and placed them in another clean rubbermaid with papertowels on the bottom. After about 10 days the first moths emerged. When they paired up I took the pair and placed them in a small paper sack (lunch size). They would 'mate' for a day and then seperate so the female could lay her eggs. Laying took about a day. When the female was finished our dragons got a snack! Silkworm moths cannot eat or drink (or fly) and live about a week. I left the eggs alone until they turned dark and then cut around them and placed the paper in a ziploc bag in the frige.

The ratio of males to females was near perfect and now I have more eggs than I could ever want stored in my frige. The first group of eggs (just cooled for a few weeks) has hatched...although I only hatched about 25 this time and will probably hatch about 25 every other week. I'll start feeding out in 3-4 weeks.
I used just over 1 pound of chow for the original group of 220--taking 80 to cocoon stage. I know it will take less than that to keep my colony going now that I have eggs...I will only hatch out what I need.

I was pretty good about taking the old food out (before it molded)--and I cleaned out the boxes once or twice a week--dumping the frass out.

I keep my house at around 75F and I hatch the eggs at room temp. Petri dishes work great for hatching because the food doesn't dry out as fast...so you do not have to disturb them when they are so tiny!

HTH
DM