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I bought 3 dozen hornworms at the NARBC last week, with hopes of giving some half grown ones to my baby tegu, and the rest to my blue tongue and African bullfrog (aka the garbage disposals).

Bad new is my tegu is TERRIFIED of the things, and I can't even get him to eat dead things right now. He's stuck on crickets at the moment.

My skink and frog LOVE them, but these things got huge overnight (literally, they were growing slowly, was gone for a day, now they are pushing 4 inches)!!

So now I have about 30 huge hornworms, who are running out of the food they came with, and I'm not sure how soon they are going to pupate. I don't want to overload my "garbage disposals" too much in the next couple days, but I don't know how long the worms will last.

Is it possible to freeze them? What would happen to the nutritional content? My biggest concern is that they will turn to nasty goo when they thaw...

Thoughts? Thanks!!
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1.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boas Nico, Tally
0.1 Amazon Tree Boa
1.0 Carpet X Diamond Python, Steve
1.0 Ball python, Stan (Rescue)
1.0 Blood python, Porthos
1.1 Baby Fox snakes
1.0 Northern Blue Tongue, Jabbi
0.0.1 Red Tegu, Sushi
1.1 Mali Uromastyx, Ajani (rescue), Goober
0.0.1 Egyptian Uromastyx, Ahktep
1.0 Leopard gecko, Frank (rescue)
1.0 Red eared slider, Spunky (rescue)
1.0 African mud turtle, Francois the Tortois (rescue)
1.0 African bullfrog, Grendel
1.0 Husband (WC) who approves of my addiction

They will turn into nasty goo. Their skins are too soft, freezing process will split them open, thus when thawed, mush.

Hornworms are a healthy insect for any insect eater who's large enough to eat 4" worms. Feed them freely to your blue tongues...mine love them and I never had problems feeding as many as 10 large ones to my adults. I just offer them in batches.

It is possible to have your Hornworms last a few more days feeding them collard greens though I find they die fairly quickly if not fed the chow. But they do last a few days if not fed at all (though they tend to eat anything including the egg crate some come with. I had some actually chew themselves out of plastic deli cups, so I do advice to give them something more healthy to eat, even if its collards and not their chow or natural food (don't feed their natural food (tobacco and tomato plant leaves) as this will make them toxic to your pets).

Hornworms are great feeders but they grow super fast if they have unlimited food available.
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PHLdyPayne