Growing the Phoenix Worm (my experience)

so here is a photo of my second batch of worms..... hands in the the photo for size reference.


not bad at all, I followed the "how to", to a T. But i cannot lie folks... they are to the size that my actions and voice turn into a pre teen girl when handling these things.... i have fought in operation enduring freedom... i have had my arm shoulder deep in a S*** pipe, i have seen some pretty messed up things and was never freaked out by it.... but this really takes the cake sadly.....

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well done..... did you catch your own breeder stock of BSFs or buy them ?

The darned things are very hard to find sold commercially here in Australia , I've raised several generations of silkworms , might give BSF maggots a go one day.

kingofnobbys":19d6294h said:

Well done..... did you catch your own breeder stock of BSFs or buy them ?

The darned things are very hard to find sold commercially here in Australia , I've raised several generations of silkworms , might give BSF maggots a go one day.

Click to expand...

I bought these guys from Phoenix Worms... But I have no plans of breeding, I live in an apartment sooo not a whole lot of room to do much of anything unfortunately. But with doing this, Floyd won't plow through the 1000 I bought. Hell he could just eat and eat the "medium" size worms I ordered, but now he will only eat about 30 a day. he especially like how much more active the larva becomes after you give them food again. they defiantly can move when they have eaten something...

oh I have only kept growing them for 3 to 4 days... they really dont need to grow any bigger at this point for him... but it does look like they might be at their peak though, we will see after he gets a little bigger to put them back in the critter cage for a second 3-4 day period.

as for feeding them I use whole grain bed, and two jars of gerbers organic butter nut squash. first jar poured on the bottom of the container, then bread, then the last jar. then when i have time three to 4 days latter i harvest. as for storage after, i just use a ziplock tub with fork holes punched in the top and just a little bit of water to keep the humidity up in it while the larva are in there so they will not transform into the flies... they get super dark a day or two after i harvest them, but thats when they have the most protean and calcium from what i have read.

My experience has been that feeding them up doesn't ave to be very sophisticated at all. Not nearly as much work as in the Step-by-Step guide pinned at the top.

All I do is simply take about half of the worms in a container (I ordered 4 containers of 100 medium, but really you could get smalls and feed them up), and transfer them to their own container, leave the other half in the "dirt" that they ship in and put them in the basement or other cool dry place.

For the half you plan to feed, just keep them in the same type of container they ship in, put in a small piece of bread at the bottom that covers the bottom, then put a cherry tomato cut in half, or shredded butternut squash, or mashed potatoes or pretty much anything. Something with some moisture is good.

Then I just keep adding veggie scraps as they eat it up and change and clean the whole thing out about once every 3 - 5 days, when it starts getting too gross. To clean it out I dump the whole mess into a strainer and run water through it until I have just maggots. Wipe out the cup, then repeat.

No need for a heating pad IMO, they seem to grow just fine at room temperature.