Ground Hog Day

The cycle is complete.
To my surprise I discovered that between 20-30 silkworm eggs  have hatched!
I can only attribute this to the fact that we have suddenly had some warm weather and that the way I have left the eggs I have unintentionally created an incubator.
Luckily, I found the new hatched silkworms very early and have been able to rehouse them and provide them with fresh leaves off our mulberry tree.

The rest of the unhatched eggs have been refrigerated until I can get them to their new owner.

Above is a photograph of  our mulberry tree.

It's not very large.

The chicken wire netting is to prevent possums from climbing into the tree and eating all the berries and to stop them from stripping the tree bare of leaves.

Six hundred and ninety nine silk cocoons.

Coming to an End.

Woke up yesterday morning, no silkworms or moths to attend to.
Felt a bit lost.
Today I spoke to my Second Son and he tells me that he has someone interested in taking the eggs to hatch next spring.
I am yet to find someone to take the 699 cocoons.
Before I find somewhere to send them off to I might experiment a little with some, see if i can unravel a bit of the silk.

Day Sixty Eight

Two more moths emerged today.
A few died and I image many, many, eggs were laid.

Day Sixty Four, Week 10

The cycle draws to a close as some of the first emerged moths die.
The female moths continue to lay eggs...each female can lay between 200 and 500 eggs.
If half of my moths are female, that's three hundred and fifty moths, times say 300 eggs, equals around 10,000 eggs. Hmmmm

Day Sixty Three

I think I can safely say that today saw more female moths emerge than male.

Some of the excess males which had been delegated to the verandah, were added to the indoor tanks to make up  for the lack.

Still more cocoons waiting to broken open.

Day Sixty Two

The full moon has had its full impact on the pupae - from now on, the number of emerging moths can only decrease.
Once again proportion of female to male is almost one to one.
The moths are taking up less of my time.
Cleanliness has paid off, no more ants.
Excess male moths have been house out doors and seem to be quite happy just hanging around on their polystyrene tank.
Eggs are being laid...they look like miniature pearls after being laid and eventually turn a brown colour after a few days.

Female moth laying eggs.

The eggs change colour after a day or so.

Day Sixty

Eggs, moths and mess.

I can report that a greater proportion of females emerged this morning.

Tomorrow sees a full moon so I'm predicting a larger number of moths heralding the dawn.

Day Fifty Eight

We have eggs.
In less than twenty four hours since the first moth emerged, the first batch of eggs were fertilized and laid.
A few more moths emerged this morning, there are far more males than females.

Day Fifty, Week 8

My aim for this blog is to post each day.
I have no camera at the moment.  I forgot it at my sister-in-law's house on Boxing Day, and I've been suffering from an extended-play influenza which is now in its third week.
The last thought on my mind today is silkworms.  Sorry to say.
Thank goodness only one, solitary, silkworm languishes on, waiting to spin its cocoon, eating very little and therefore not needing much attention from me.
All of the family have been visiting over the Christmas holiday period and only one adult child remains and plans to return to the city tomorrow.
Hopefully this means I can fade into the woodwork for a few days in an effort to fully recover.
Let's see if cocooned pupae can wait for my full recovery before metamorphosing and emerging as moths.
There is much work to be done before eggs begin to be laid.

Day Thirty Five

Today's post is brought to you by the letter S and the number 6.5!

I'm still feeling a bit under the weather today.
My tummy is still sensitive and I'm only eating lightly.

On the other hand, the silkies are spurring on.

The fellows below are measuring in at approximately 6.5cm in length and 1cm in thickness.  Others are are measuring in at almost 8cm.

onthesilkwormroad.blogspot.com

 

Isn't the creamy wonderful?

The cream silkworms are definitely a minority.  Perhaps this is what makes them seem more attractive to me.

I found an interesting article about changing the colour of silkworms which in turn changes the colour of the silk:

Australian Geographic.

Oh the possibilities.

I've listed the silkworms for sale on Gumtree.  The ad will be visible tomorrow.

Unless I take up sericulture  as a full time activity I panic to think what I'm going to do with around six hundred cocoons and the resulting moths and eggs! 

Feel free to contact me through this blog if you would like to purchase some.

The going rate is $5.00 for 15 silkworms.  Pick up only and I'm in the Blue Mountains.

Thanks for visiting!

Day Twenty Four

Thanks to The Graphics Fairy for the above vintage image of a silkworm caterpillar, moth and eggs.

I'm beginning to feel quite attached to the caterpillars.

They are large enough now to be much more easily handled.

The size variance between them all is still huge.

The larger ones are buzzing with life.

I can feel this when I touch them.

They do not flinch at all when I make contact with them gently using my finger tips.

It is essential that the larvae are only handled with clean hands.

Bacteria may be transferred to the larvae.

To keep the caterpillars healthy it is important to keep the humidity (moisture) in their tank  low.

High humidity encourages mould to grow and will make the silkworms sick.

If the worms must be handled it should be done with great care so as to avoid bruising them.

Day Seventeen

The rain has stopped and the sun is shining.

The silkworms are much more active now and eating voraciously.

This little critter seems to have no stirpes.

He is one of the bigger silkworms

I've fed the silkworms three times today.

They are getting through the leaves very quickly now.

One more batch went to a pre-school this afternoon.

There has been a lot of interest on the facebook page I'm trying to sell them from but not all the people expressing interest actually follow through on their requests.

If I don't sell many of the silkworm larvae I will try and sell the cocoons, and then if I need to the eggs as well.

Day Nine

The weather over the last two days has been miserable.

On Tuesday, the temperature was around 37oC.  Yesterday it was 15 oC.  A big drop, and this can play havoc with the silkworm larvae.  The poor little things became sluggish and they slowed their eating right down.

In the end I turned the heating on.  Can you believe it?  Less than two weeks to summer and I've got the heating on?

Well, the good news is that the weather is back on track today and the little critters have returned to their active hungry selves.

And I sold my first batch of the silkworms today.  So far I've exchanged about 20, given away about 15 and sold another 20.

The larger of the silkworms is now measuring in at 12mm long and 2mm thick.  And their colour is lightening up to a nice creamy colour.

I've also got a request for some eggs (ova) when they eventuate which I might exchange for a mulberry plant.

I have become quite attached to the little things, I spend around an hour morning and night making sure they have enough fresh leaves and that old leaves are removed.

Of course if there were less, then this would take less time to do.

Day Four

Phew, what a day!
Thought I'd not get around to this post today, even though photos were taken early morning.  Birthday celebrations with family followed by a trip to the emergency room at ANZAC Memorial Hospital Katoomba kept me busy.
Not to worry though, everything's good. Just need to make an appointment to see my dentist is all.

Today's emergents. 

Length: less than 3mm

Thickness: less than 1mm.

Most of the eggs are now pale in colour, that is, empty.

Three little silkworms, reaching for that elusive mulberry leaf.

Silkworms are insects.

The caterpillars have six 'real' legs and five pairs of false legs.

Day Three

One and two day old silkworms continue to  nibble away at the mulberry leaves creating a lacy pattern.

I swear that this morning's new hatchlings are much bigger than the first day's.

Above you can see the white eggs which have hatched and the dark spot is the hole from which the furry silkworms have emerged.

The darker eggs are unhatched fertile eggs.

Unlike the adult silkworm, newborn silkworms are hairy.

In Japan, newborn silkworms are called "Kego", meaning "hairy baby".

This morning I swapped twenty five of the newly emerged silkworms for three mushrooms at our local Crop & Swap.

I'm reckoning that around three hundred eggs have hatched so far.

Day Two

Here is one of the silkworms that hatched yesterday.

You can see that the tiny little critters have eaten a lace pattern into the mulberry leaves.

This is what the unhatched eggs look like.

These are new hatchlings emerging overnight. There was a full moon this morning at 06.17 hours on 11.11.11.

Newborns on day two.

No hatchlings seemed to emerge yesterday afternoon.

Seems that they may prefer to hatch overnight and early morning.

The plan is to lure the hatchlings onto fresh mulberry leaves and then to transfer them to the second tank until all the worms have emerged from the eggs.

Day One.

I'm like an excited mother with a new born babe.

I know the photo's not great but after a two and a bit weeks of waiting for our silk worm eggs to hatch, I was beginning to loose hope.

Then this morning...six little hatchlings arrived.

I should have know that they'd emerge so close to a full moon.  Silly me.

If you look carefully, those fuzzy dark stripes, well, they are silk worms!

My first reaction was to rush out and pick some mulberry leaves for the tiny little darlings.

Next, I isolated them from the main tank, for fear that they may get lost.

In less than five minutes one little one had made its way to the freshly picked leaves.

Hope you can join me on a journey of a different kind!