I checked some older treads and haven't found the answers I'm looking for.

1. Are silkworms a good feeder for T's?
2. How can you determine the sex of silkworms?
3. What alternative food is good for silkworms?

You would think all of us should know these questions keeping these as a child.

T's do eat silkworms, it's just a messy affair. There is a lot of green slime involved, your spider will look like a Bulldog eating Lime milk and mieliepap.

If you carefully pick up the silkworm and hold it between your thumb and index, rotate it so you have a ventral view. You will obviously see the feet of your silkworm. Now if you see another little silk worm between the fourth and fifth row of feet, you are holding a male.

Beetroot and Cabbage.

I feed my T's silkworms every now and again but not too often. Some T's love them others just ignore it completely. My "Lasiodora difficilis" Brazilian Fire Red Tarantula seems to dance with the silk worm hehehe. Just keeps moving around the silkworm feeling it up but never attacks it... very strange to watch. Its almost like its trying to figure out from what angle it should attack it. This can go on for hours till I remove the silkworm.

Different leaves makes diffident color silk, beetroot red and so on.

I've got just under 2000 silkworms.


I feed my Ts the silkworms now, to give my roach colony a boost. It is a bit more messy, but great feeders. My L.parahybana eats 3 big ones at a time. The nutritional values are quite good in comparison to other feeders.

I'm also in the process of getting silkworms to hatch throughout the whole year. The only downside is the 4 months that there will be no leaves for them to eat, so I will have to stock up on leaves and put them in the refrigerator.

You get silkworm food. It's a powder that you make into paste. I'm also seeing if I cant make my own silkworm food for the winter months.

You can feed silkworms beetroot, lettuce and cabbage leaves. However, they must be fed this from the very first day they hatch. You can also feed them this after the are fed mulberry leaves, but then would not be as healthy as they are not used to it. Also limit their feeding to maximum 2 weeks on alternative leaves other than mulberry, otherwise they will get sick and they will start to die off. The last 2 weeks before they spin you can give them alternative leaves as they then developed a strong enough system for these leaves. Feeding beetroot leaves in the last two weeks, will make them spin a pinkish silk.

Rather try and get mulberry leaves and stock up. It's more healthy for them.

Will post a thread when my multiple hatching per year is a success!

Ok firt you cant determine the sex of the silkworm only as the moth the males are smaller than the females and all my Ts eat them but don't give too much silkworms.

Lol, the zebra ones are the males, the white ones are the females! As easy as that