Ok, so im toying with the idea of breeding silkies, depending on how difficult it is. My newest adoptee Leo loves them and is putting on some nice healthy weight with them - my youngest beardie loves them too. I have no clue how to breed these guys - the fact they turn into a moth is a bit unnerving, thats a whole new world for me! Has anyone here bred them? If its too hard i will stick with my mealie, cricket and roach colonies...
Hi I think the biggest problem will be get supplies of mulberry leaves as thats their only diet as far as I know. Unless your have a mulberry tree in your back yard, stick with what you have got.
You can buy dehydrated mulberry chow, though. That's what I did. I found breeding silkies to be really easy. The best part is, you only have to do it once a year, because the eggs can be kept in the fridge until you want them to hatch. So you just breed enough moths to provide you with a year's worth of eggs, and you're done until next year. You don't really have to do anything to make them cocoon, other than let them grow big enough and give them some areas to build their cocoons. The moths are actually kinda cute! Don't let em freak you out. Did you check out the caresheets we have on this site for breeding silkies? They are pretty helpful.
Kephy, i tried to find those caresheets and couldnt find them. I clicked on the food/feeder section in the care sheets and it sas URL not found - any way you could give me a direct link?
Sorry that took a few days. I was having connection problems and the links were broken. I talked to justkev and he fixed them so they should work now. http://www.reptilerooms.com/index.php?categoryid=21 It's mostly under Part 1 & 2 of Silkworm Care.
Thanks - its working perfectly now! Im gonna look into breeding, i just got a new load of silkworms so we will see how it goes :-D
As a general rule for feeding reptiles - try to keep the insects smaller than the width of your reptiles head. With soft bodied food items like silkies you can go a bit larger but try not to.
