It was epic! I started with 5 cocoons and let them breed. Got about 300 eggs, down to about 250 itty bitty little cats. Then about 170 cocoons, and about 150 beautiful lunas - all within a week of each other. Worst part? I had a trip to Australia the last 4 days and missed the moment when all 150 had eclosed. They were a month behind schedule across the board.
It is VERY difficult to explain just how much 150 large silk moths can eat. A coffin sized bundle of leaves in 4 or 5 days. Nothing but twigs and stems when they were done. Temp and humdity had to be JUST right, or they'd dessicate, get sick, or stop eating. The very few I lost as cats were due to falling or drowning, which was just stupid on my part, and I adjusted afterwards. (You can see one of the cocoons marked "Aquaman", becuase he just crawled into the water of a vase and stayed there for God knows how long. When I pulled him out, he seemed to have some kind of larva brain damage - eeeeeeeeverything was done VERY slowly. He cocooned about a month late, and eclosed another month later. But in the end, he was fine... lonely, but fine).
The really sad part (for YOU all to hear), is that I put all the THOUSANDS of eggs produced from those 150 moths into the freezer so they wouldn't hatch. I know, I know - you could have used them. Sigh.... I simply could NOT comprehend the resources it would take to raise 7,000 luna moths!!!
