A Beginner’s Guide to Hornworm Breeding

How to Breed Hornworm Moths

Most people think of crickets or mealworms when picking a feeder insect for their reptile pet. Enthusiasts also love dubia roaches and black soldier flies, too. These are all good options, but what if your bearded dragon is getting too big for tiny critters?

Well, you need a bigger feeder insect, like the hornworm caterpillar. Hornworms are less common as feeders, but they’re a hearty, nutritious choice, with a higher protein to fat ratio than dubia roaches. If you’re looking for a long-term feeder for your reptile, look no further.

In this article, I’ll give you all the basics to set up an in-house hornworm factory that will produce all the tasty bugs your beardy will ever need. 

Plant Pest, Perfect Food

The tomato hornworm (Manduca quinquemaculata) is a moth native to North and South America. It has a light blue or green color as a caterpillar, with brilliant yellow stripes on its sides. It’s mostly known as a crop pest, and can destroy tomato and tobacco crops.

Right up top, be aware that you should never feed your hornworms caterpillars on tomato plants, as it will make them toxic to your reptile. At the end of their life cycle, they lay eggs on tomato plants, but this is okay because you won’t use the pupated moths as feeders.

The hornworm thrives in a room temperature environment and do great indoors. Their life cycle lasts 30-48 days. Before pupating, the caterpillars will grow to 3” long, which is plenty for even big beardies.

It’s also worth noting that they have a higher protein content than dubia roaches, high fiber, and great moisture content. Their calcium content is good, but you’ll still need to dust them before giving them to your pet.

Hornworms are generally considered pretty easy to breed. The main difficulty comes with moving them to new homes as they move into new life stages. They’re also much nicer to look at than roaches.

Supplies to Breed Hornworms

To get started breeding hornworms, you’ll need a few things. For starters, you need hornworms. It’s easy to start from larvae and raise them to adulthood, and then collect their eggs for the next generation.

You’ll need some plastic gutter guard screen, like you find at the hardware store, some deli cups, and a medium-sized storage container. You’ll also need some hornworm chow, which will boost their nutritional value. These supplies will get your hornworms through the larval stage.

To pupate them, you also need a large storage container (around 50 qt size), some baking tins, coco coire substrate, a lepidtarium, a small tomato plant, and a hummingbird feeder. This sounds like a lot, but it’s actually pretty simple.

How to Breed Hornworms

Chances are, you’re going to start the breeding process with caterpillars. So let’s start there.

Starting from Larvae

When your hornworms arrive in the mail, you’ll start them in your medium-sized storage bins.

To set the bins up, cut a few pieces of gutter guard so that they sit about half an inch above the bottom. Cut or drill some air holes into the lid of the container. Next, prepare your worm chow by mixing it with hot water until there are no clumps.

Let it cool. It will solidify, and you can break it into chunks. Spread the chunks on the gutter guard, and move your hornworms in.

Once you’ve started breeding them, this is the life stage where you would feed your hornworms to your beardy.

Pupating

Your caterpillars will grow to about 3” long. You’ll notice their skin getting lighter, and their bodies will start pulsing. On the inside, they’re getting ready to pupate. Time to set up your next home for them.

Fill the baking tins up with coco coir and set them inside your large-size storage bins. Mist the coco coir every few days to keep it moist enough.

Set your pupating hornworms in and they will burrow into the substrate and do their thing. After a week, gently dig them up. If the cocoons sit too long, they can die from mold in the soil.

Moving to a Lepidtarium

The setup in your lepidtarium is similar to the last storage bin. You need baking tins with fresh coco coir on the bottom. Gently bury the cocoons in the substrate.

You also need a small tomato plant and a hummingbird feeder in the lepidtarium. The hornworms will emerge as moths, eat the hummingbird food, and lay their eggs on the tomato plants.

Expect to see tons of eggs, and be ready. You want to collect them and move them straight into their first home, which are the deli cups I mentioned above.

Preparing Deli Cups

Setting up deli cups the first time can be tricky. Basically, you want a U-shaped length of gutter guard resting against the bottom of the cups. Cut some holes and secure them in place with zip ties, then hot glue over the holes.

Then, fill the bottoms of the cups with a layer of worm chow and let it cool.

What you have in the end is a cup full of worm chow with two lengths of gutter guard running up to the lid. This part is very important, because you’re going to flip it upside down and put the hornworm eggs on the lid.

When the caterpillars hatch, they will climb the gutter guard and set up shop on the layer of worm chow. Their poop (or frass) will fall back onto the lid. You can open the containers every day or so to clean the lids off and let fresh air in.

Repeating the Cycle

Eventually, your baby hornworms will grow big enough to move around on their own. At this point, it’s time to start the cycle over. You’ll move your hornworms out of the deli cups into the medium storage bins, make some more worm chow, and spread it for them to eat.

Congrats! You just created a nutritious renewable food source that will last your pet the rest of its life.