Switching your larva to a different wood

LarvaHunter

LarvaHunter

Eudicella
I have larvae that were in a rotting cypress. I collected rotted cypress to use as sub, but It is a limited supply and I was thinking of mixing in oak in small quantities at first not to shock them. Has anyone here done this? Or has a recommendation of how long I should take to get them switched to oak fully. Rotten oak is more convenient to source.

 
I have collected some D. tityus larvae from a pine tree and used oak to rear them before. They grew fine though they didn't grow as fast as the ones I had originally.

 
just put both substrates together if you are worried. the larvae should have no problem adjusting but it might feed only on the old substrate at first

 
maybe you can put the oak sub on top of the cypress sub and see if the larva goes to the oak?

 
I added some more oak to their sub yesterday and they are doing great, looks like they are transitioning well from cypress to oak.

I have one in pure cypress still, it is doing great.

 
Update- they are going on 100 % oak within a week. The one is still doing great in the rotten cypress.

Would adding decayed leaves be beneficial?

 
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I had 7 larvae that were originally in cypress. Six stayed in pure cypress while the 7th went in oak/cypress mix. It died a week later. I thought it could be a coincidence but I didn't wanna keep trying with my other larvae. Seems like it could be related to the same issue here.

 
It's been under 4 days so it shocked them for sure, out of the 6 - 3 died,so I put them back in cypress tonight, it will be interesting to see if and how fast they revive, if at all. I'm sure it's related because I kept one in pure cypress as a control and that ones doing great. Luckily I gathered and saved some of cypress and hopefully these guys will live.

 
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