Diminishing returns

Although I started out with ten little worms, I'm now down to four. The ones who have died all seemed to slow in growth, then just die. Thankfully none of them had nasty symptoms of a disease, they just seemed to peeter out and fall over dead. This is possibly the result of them being inbred, which I highly suspect.

The four that I have look good right now, so if I'm lucky I'll have adults. I doubt they'll breed since they are from the same female, and I'm not certain I'd want them to breed anyway. Further inbreeding is not what I need!

I'm thinking about contacting the plant pest supervisor from USDA and asking for advice on how to get this project off the ground. Two years into my three year permit and I'm stalled out.