Ive had a fun little project on the go, that's nearing completion, so I th
ought Id post it even though I couldnt decide which category it would go in!
Silk production (sericulture) has been around for about 3000 years, but as silkworm only eat white mulberry leaves, it was confined to those areas with enough trees to produce silk of a significant quantity. Thankfully, because white mulberry is also a health food fad, you can now buy powdered mulberry leaf and reconstitute it with water into a kind of dog food type mush, which the caterpillars will readily eat, meaning you can make your own silk at home.
I ordered the eggs online for about£5.00 I got 250. allegedly. clearly as the eggs are like poppy seeds, they chucked a good number in, something more like 600! This photo is a few days after hatching, they are called Keega which means `hairy baby`, they loose their hair after the first moult(instar)
At first they hardly eat anything, a spoonful of food will keep they going and its hard to tell if they have eaten at all. They need feeding twice a day, and kept in temperatures between 72 and 82 degrees.
Within four weeks your worms will look like this, giant finger sized monsters that eat about a pound of mulberry a day, having become very demanding and now filling two 45 litre storage tubs. But don't worry, soon they'll stop eating and start making silk!
Ah but first you must build each of your new babies a little cradle. Cut toilet roll tubes into two or three sections and glue them together like a honeycomb. you need about 100. By now you will probably be regretting your decision to to start a worm farm as youv'e probably realized due to the work involved you wont be making your fortune in the silk trade any time soon. Not unless you can get some illegal chinese immigrants in the back bed room doing all this for you
.
There is the same two worms a day later with the almost complete silk cocoons. You'll know when its time for the worms to spin as they stop eating and start climbing. They also completely evacuate their bowels so it suddenly gets messy. They are already producing enough poo to fill half a tin every day. The cat does not do that much, and the worms proved difficult to clean out, having to be rolled up like a carpet to get to the layer underneath.
sadly it looks like half my worm died in these few days , some spin coccoons, others seemingly drop dead instead, presumably not being strong enough to weave silk. They use 75% of their body mass to spin the silk needed to coccoon. Each worm produces about a mile of thread in a range of colours.
Well this is where I'm up to. Traditionally the chinese drop them in boiling water at this stage and unwind the silk onto a little wheel, but if you dont want to kill them, you can allow them to hatch, though they will chew through the silk and damage the thread length,but its really not likely youll be doing this for profit anyway, so Ill just likely let mine hatch.
The technique of unwinding silk and weaving it into useable cloth is another story !
ought Id post it even though I couldnt decide which category it would go in!
Silk production (sericulture) has been around for about 3000 years, but as silkworm only eat white mulberry leaves, it was confined to those areas with enough trees to produce silk of a significant quantity. Thankfully, because white mulberry is also a health food fad, you can now buy powdered mulberry leaf and reconstitute it with water into a kind of dog food type mush, which the caterpillars will readily eat, meaning you can make your own silk at home.
I ordered the eggs online for about£5.00 I got 250. allegedly. clearly as the eggs are like poppy seeds, they chucked a good number in, something more like 600! This photo is a few days after hatching, they are called Keega which means `hairy baby`, they loose their hair after the first moult(instar)
At first they hardly eat anything, a spoonful of food will keep they going and its hard to tell if they have eaten at all. They need feeding twice a day, and kept in temperatures between 72 and 82 degrees.
Within four weeks your worms will look like this, giant finger sized monsters that eat about a pound of mulberry a day, having become very demanding and now filling two 45 litre storage tubs. But don't worry, soon they'll stop eating and start making silk!
Ah but first you must build each of your new babies a little cradle. Cut toilet roll tubes into two or three sections and glue them together like a honeycomb. you need about 100. By now you will probably be regretting your decision to to start a worm farm as youv'e probably realized due to the work involved you wont be making your fortune in the silk trade any time soon. Not unless you can get some illegal chinese immigrants in the back bed room doing all this for you
.
There is the same two worms a day later with the almost complete silk cocoons. You'll know when its time for the worms to spin as they stop eating and start climbing. They also completely evacuate their bowels so it suddenly gets messy. They are already producing enough poo to fill half a tin every day. The cat does not do that much, and the worms proved difficult to clean out, having to be rolled up like a carpet to get to the layer underneath.sadly it looks like half my worm died in these few days , some spin coccoons, others seemingly drop dead instead, presumably not being strong enough to weave silk. They use 75% of their body mass to spin the silk needed to coccoon. Each worm produces about a mile of thread in a range of colours.
Well this is where I'm up to. Traditionally the chinese drop them in boiling water at this stage and unwind the silk onto a little wheel, but if you dont want to kill them, you can allow them to hatch, though they will chew through the silk and damage the thread length,but its really not likely youll be doing this for profit anyway, so Ill just likely let mine hatch.
The technique of unwinding silk and weaving it into useable cloth is another story !
its been a fun project, despite it being more work than I initially expected. Ive grown quite fond of my worms! When they hatch by the way, They mate and die within a day. they cannot fly either, having become so domesticated as to grow fat bodies and small wings. Once the eggs are laid they can be stored in the fridge for up to five years, so if anybody wants them Ill post eggs out
