Heating for silkworms?

[bluesoda025]

I'm planning on raising silkworms and well, for the first stage of their lives, I will have an incubator to keep them warm. What I'm not sure of is what is a good way of providing heat for them when they've grown bigger and are no longer living in the incubator? I'm just thinking it would be better to provide SOME heat, since I read that it's optimal to keep the temperature at 78-88 F for them. My house is only 70 F at most at this time of year. However I don't want to also dry out the food quickly from the heat source. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[bluesoda025]

Does no one here raise silkworms? :?

 

[HYPORollo]

i do but i have a feeder buisness so i have alot of worms and i keep mine in an incubator the first part of there lives and also i live in south florida so my climate is great for breeding feeders i have them all in a room with no ac but so im not to sure where you live and how the weather is

 

[bluesoda025]

I live in Vancouver and it's basically not too cold or too hot here. In the winter I'd say we have our room temperatures at around 70 F (although it feels cooler to me sometimes, but that's just me) and at night we only have the thermostat at 64 F.. So I don't really think it would be warm enough at night.. or maybe even during the day? Probably need some kind of heat source? Would those ceramic heat emitters work.. because I don't know if shining a bright bulb at them all day is a good idea..

 

[HYPORollo]

i guess it would you would just have to keep a eye on the temps so you dont cook them lol or UTH would work i think lol

 

[bluesoda025]

I'm more hesitant about using UTH's because I'll be keeping them in a plastic Rubbermaid bin. I'm not sure if it's completely safe to use a UTH on a plastic bin. It may also make it too warm? Not sure.. :?

 

[HYPORollo]

ok then yea that might not be a good idea i use them on my roach bins but they need alot of heat so im not sure about it for silkworms like i said i live in florida we are perfect for it sorry if i cant be much help there

 

[smilieone]

I put a heatting pad at the bottom of my bin

 

[bluesoda025]

What's the wattage and size of your heating pad?

 

[smilieone]

its just a regular one? one you by at like walmart has three settings? low med high? I used a big rubber maid tub. put the heatting pad on bottom and towel on top of it .just check the temps with a gun. till you figure out which setting to use.... then put smaller bins in the big bin.. little shoe box size bins with different stages of silkies.. from eggs to small med large silkies.. also one for coccons and one for moths. they just kept breading the longest stage was waiting for eggs to hatch again once laid by the moths. but it was very easy i thought.

 

[HYPORollo]

thank you smilieone for answering this topic i just have them on a large amount so its a little bit more work for me when i did on a smaller scale in the begining it was much easier but now there a little bit more work to make sure i have a good amount hatching out and growing them to larger sizes and i cant reall go into detial about my methods but yours seem to be good and again my climate is way diffrent so some things are diffrent for me and might not work for others so thanks for helping out