Dried Silkworm Pupae 100g

A dried silkworm pupa is a whole animal. Brown, oblong, roughly the size of a large coffee bean, and recognisably the thing it was before the water came out of it. Being a whole animal is the point of them and not a drawback. A milled or formulated protein hands over the protein and very little else, while an intact organism arrives with its chitin shell wrapped around a fat-rich interior, which is far closer to the shape of food a detritivore evolved to break down. Ours arrive in bulk and we pack them into a resealable bag.

The analysis is where they separate from the other protein foods we stock. Crude protein sits at 48%, crude fat at 27%, crude fibre at 8% and ash at 13%. The fat figure is the one worth looking at, since little else on our feeding shelf comes near it. Gravid females and fast-growing juveniles need energy, not only amino acids. The 8% fibre is largely chitin, the same compound the animals eating it build their own shells from, and it is the part a powdered feed cannot give them.

Protein-hungry species are the obvious users. Large Porcellio and Porcellionides go through pupae readily, and both are prone to turning on their own soft moulting animals when protein runs short. Millipedes benefit for the reason any large-bodied animal does, since they have a great deal of body to build and leaf litter alone is slow going. Roaches swarm them within minutes.

Offer them sparingly and broken up. One or two whole pupae will do for twenty or thirty isopods, or crush a pupa between your fingers and scatter the pieces so smaller animals can get at the inside. Once a week is enough for most colonies, twice while conditioning for breeding. The fat that makes them useful also makes them the quickest of the dry foods to spoil, so put out only what will be eaten inside a day and lift out anything left the following morning. A dense springtail population in the same enclosure will clear the crumbs before mould finds them.

Rotation beats repetition. These sit at the rich end of a feeding week, not in the middle of it, with freeze-dried peas covering the plant protein and fibre side and Repashy Bug Burger carrying the soft, wet part of the week. None of it stands in for calcium, which wants to be permanently available, and cuttlebone worked through the substrate is the straightforward way to handle that. Store the bag sealed somewhere cool and dry, since dried pupae draw moisture from humid air and will mould in the packet. Our guide to what isopods eat puts the whole diet in order, and the rest is in our accessories collection.