Silkie egg's still not hatched.

[zoomommi]

OK, I should have listened to al of you. This is the 9th day that these eggs in the petri dish have been warmed and waiting to be hatched and NOTHING! They have been in the grayish color and that is when they said that it is when they are ready. NOTHING! How long do you think I should wait before ditching the dish. They should have a replacement policy on the dishes of eggs.
Ollie loves the silkies but they are expensive. Any of you have any tricks on these silkworm eggs?
zoomommi

 

[brunoboy]

I'd wait for another week, at least.

Be patient.

 

[zoomommi]

We have had Ollie for almost a month now. She has grown over two inches and I am now seeing that it does get expensive to feed her. I don't know if it is the cost as much as the work. I would love another box of silkies, but the shipping is what gets you. I have to drive to another town to get crickets and it is now adding up to getting them once a week.
Do any of you have a great place to order crickets and worms, (silkies, pheonix, mealworms) that are healthy and they don't eat you up on shipping. I would love to find something to breed and feed, but I CAN NOT DO the roaches. Owwwwww , they creep me out. I need to find a way to order a large amount of crickets and keep them in a big keeper in the garage. I guess I need to build something and just order them. Could you guys give me a website that shows a large cricket keeper that I could build so I could get a larger quantity of them?
Thanks again,
zoomommi

 

[brunoboy]

If you live in an area that has mulberry trees, then silks are the BEST way to go, for the summer. And that is only if you don't mind going out to collect small branches w/leaves once, at times, twice a day, every day--- until all the worms cocoon. Chow is WAY too pricey and silkies eat LOTS of it. I cannot stress that enough. Plus, shipping costs. I only raise silkworms in the Summer. It's worth it!

Too bad you can't get over your dislike for roaches as feeders. They are very cool, and some of the pet species are quite extraordinary! Dubai look more like pill bugs and are pretty slow movers. They seem clumsy. Sometimes they will flip over on their back unintentionally and r e a l l y struggle to right themselves up--you kind of feel sorry for them. :roll: No smell, no real mess, no escapees and a HAPPY dragon. Roaches are great.

 

[fresnowitte]

Where did you get your silkworm eggs?
Have you had any luck yet?

I got mine from http://www.mulberryfarms.com/horn2.htm
They arrived last night. The packaging said 1-7 days to hatch, but about 12 eggs had already hatched. :shock:
(It was in the 40's during the time they were in route here~recommended temps for hatching 78*-88*.)
I got them to the right temps an in 2 hours about 200 had hatched and by morning all were hatched.

I tried growing silkies last year using the mulberry leaves, but could only keep the microscopic delicate baby silkies alive for 3 days. I found it really hard to change out the dried leaves for the fresh ones the first few days.(I've read that it takes 3-5 days before they are strong enough to find their way to fresh food.)

This time I'm using the chow and found for me this is working better so far because the chow doesn't dry out as fast as the leaves. So the silkies have a chance to get big enough to travel to the new food on their own before I need to change food.

Silkworms hatch, eat 24/7, staying worms for about 26 days. These little booger grow hecka fast. :shock:
You can almost watch them grow. They transformed from fuzzy little black threads_ about double the size__ in less than 24 hours. It looks like the head is more pronoun and the fuzz is not as noticeable on their heads anymore.

I hope this try works out better than my last one.

I wish you luck with yours too! :wink:

 

[zoomommi]

Congrats Barbara,
Mine are still little gray dots in the petri dish. I got them from Coastal Silkworms. They have a shop on the east coast and the west coast. The box of live medium silkies were healthy and my Ollie loved them. I also got the kit with the eggs to hatch. I am now seeing why all of you are calling yourselves slaves to your dragon. The food thing is a lot of work and money. I am trying to find something to raise as feeders. I CAN NOT do the roaches and they seem to be popular to have. Ain't going there. Ollie likes the pheonix worms but not as much as the silkies. I may order the eggs from mulberry farms and have another go at it. I have another pack of the mulberry chow to cook.
Barbara, did your eggs come in the dish, or did you have to set them in the petri dish? How many hatched in the batch? I hope 100%!!
I may try Mulberry Farms, I need food for my baby!! The pet stores are constantly out of small crickets, so I am planning on ordering a ton of crickets and house them in the garage in a large garbage can. Hopefully the silkworms can be shipped in the same order.
Barbara, do you order your crickets or do you get them from a local store?
Thanks,
zoomommi

 

[patrickb]

Well, I say let you try breeding a few thousand crickets at a time, then you might reconsider roaches

For the crickets, a large garbage can will work. Anything spacious will work, preferably slick sides so they can't climb it. Basically you need the space which you provide with the container itself and a lot of "furniture" Furniture is the hiding/crawling places for the crickets. Eggcrates, paper towel tubes, cardboard, crumbled up paper etc etc. Crickets are very cannabalistic and will need an escape so vertical surface area inside the container is a huge must.

Food, this is the easy part. Crickets eat anything literally, but since you are breeding them to feed to your beardie, you will need to keep them fed well. A good high protein dry dog/cat food is a good staple food source. Chicken mash that you can buy at feed stores is even better, but make sure it is non-medicated. Moisture, a very crucial thing. Slices of veggies or fruits work well here, or use the water crystals you can buy online. The cricket gel you can buy at petstores is very expensive when you start breeding crickets. My personal favorite is carrots as the moisture source. They won't mold so no worries about mold there. Either way, you will probably have to replace the moisture source daily.

Ventilation is another important thing. If you use the garbage can, leave the top off. They need airflow. This leads into the other very big thing, sanitation. Crickets are dirty little things and will eat their own dead and poo quite willingly at all stages of life. You will need to clean out any dead crickets daily, and spot sweep out the frass (poo and shed skins) every two to three days. The dead bodies are the big thing, as they decompose and release gases that cause a domino effect of dieoffs within a very short amount of time.

To breed, keep all of the above done, plus temps around 90 degrees or so. Get some pint sized containers and fill with moist dirt (not soaking wet, but not dry either) Place those dirt containers in for 3-4 days, then remove and place in a new breeding tank/bin. Add fresh dirt containers and keep on repeating this process. You could leave them in there instead of moving to a new tank, but your production will suffer severely. Within one to two weeks, you will see pinhead crickets. Rear them the same way as you do the adults. Hope that is of some help!

 

[NegativeCreep]

I order 500 crickets at a time (there are a lot of good cricket suppliers online, and they are all about the same price).

They are easy to keep at this number. I have a 10 gallon tank with a screen top. I line the bottom with paper towels and tape them down with masking tape (this is worth the trouble for cleaning purposes). I change the towels every new shipment. Inside the tank, I keep the egg crates that come with the crickets, along with paper towel/toilet paper rolls for furniture. Keep plenty of this kind of furniture so that every cricket has elbow room; this will cut down on cannibalism.

Most cricket suppliers sell water crystals. Get some of these and put the hydrated crystals in a small dish in the bottom of the tank. This will keep them hydrated. I change them every other day (some people keep them for longer with different feeders, but crickets are gross!), and I stir them on the day that I don't change them. I feed my crix a small dish of commercial cricket food that I got from my cricket supplier, and I also throw bearded dragon pellets in there; the crickets LOVE the pellets. I also keep a small paper plate of greens, the same ones that you feed your beardie. You can use potatoes for food and water in the same source, but the cost adds up and they are gross. There is nothing like a hollowed-out, dry potato full of tiny crix

Every day that I get crickets out, I also clean up dead crickets, cricket shells (they molt or something) and cricket poo. I use a paint brush now (stolen idea from someone else on this forum). I use it like a broom and sweep all the waste into a corner and use a small paper plate torn in half as a make-shift dust pan. I like the paint brush because it's gentle if you hit a cricket (which most will move out of your way) and it fits into the tank.

If you keep the crickets clean on a regular basis, the smell is minimal at its worst. I would never consider breeding crickets as they are nasty little critters. I don't suppose it would be hard, but its just not worth it to me. I can get crickets delivered directly to my door for about $20 per 500 (and really, $20 for 1,000), so that is reasonable enough for me. One of these days, when I can afford my dubias, I will never have to mess with the nasty little bugger ever again!

But seriously, save some serious cash and order them online in bulk.

 

[fresnowitte]

Zoomommi I ordered just 500 eggs in the petri dish all of which did hatch, thank-you. I just wanted enough to try again to see how it would go if all goes well I will order more. So far so good I haven't killed them yet. The incubator and chow is making a big difference from without incubator and with fresh mulberry leaves. I just took a look at them and they have more than doubled in size in just over 24 hrs. I'm so excited my beardies love silkies. Wheezie's favorite is silkies and then butters. He will only eat soft bodied worms where Zak will eat anything.

Personally I don't use crickets anymore although you can order those here too; http://www.mulberryfarms.com/cricket.htm

 

[zoomommi]

Barbara,
What did you use for an incubator>? I just put the dish in a towel and put the heating pad on low and set the towel with the dish inside on top. I am going to call coastal silk.com just to see if they feel sorry for my ignorance and send me another dish. I am curious about your incubator and fresh leaves? MulberryFarms sells the fresh leaves?
zoomommi

 

[fresnowitte]

I have a little home made incubator that we put together several years ago. Someday we would like to build a custom incubator with a front opening door and shelves, but this one will due for us till then.

No mulberryfarms sells the chow that I'm using this time. My last attempt at silkies I used leaves, we have a mulberry tree in our yard.

 

[zoomommi]

:wink: Wow Patrickb,
Thanks for the cricket info! You know, I was at Books a Million looking for a book on reptile keeping, and a book on Breeding feeders. I came home and did a search on feeder keeping and there are none. You, or someone on the forum that has experience or just wants to work hard and research should write and publish a book on raising feeders for reptiles. I can't be the only one looking for info on saving money and breeding feeders. In fact, a lot of those folks in the pet stores don't even realize that you can get all that stuff for there animals on line for half the price of pet stores.
I think I will try to cricket in bulk first. I would love to do away with the stinky, dirty crickets all together!
Any suggestions on criket/worm companies you guys like to deal with???
Thanks,
zoomommi

 

[zoomommi]

Barbara,
How are Zak & Wheezie? I saw your pictorial, but it took us to May of 2008.
zoomommi :shock:

 

[neecie]

I may have said this before, but I love butterworms. Easiest of all feeders more than phoenix. Keep in frig, chubby, pretty, last 5 weeks, no food necessary, good nutrition, no stink (a little fruity if you put your nose close), high calcium. I've been alternating crick/phoenix/silk/hornworms -- for balance, but would be happy to only do butter. Anyone want to chime in about the butterworm story????

 

[brunoboy]

Did you have any problems raising your last batch of silks on mulberry leaves? I know that when they have first hatched, you must feed them 'baby' leaves------because their jaws are not strong enough to chew the tougher, older leaves.