Silkies made easy

sking21

New Member
I hated the chow thing so this will be the only time ill mention them doing this thread. The women I got my silkworms from had a very high mortality rate. I figured it was due to cleaniness and the fact she didnt consisitently feed them. I could tell from the dried up leaves that looked days old. For those that have leaves nearby, why not raise silkworms when in season. I havent seen a dead silkworm since the one I swashed by mistake. I dotn wash my hands or take any extra precautions when caring for them. The only essential is space, food, and clean up from my experience. And nowhere nearly as much as you would think. Yes they do poop alot but if your your using the netting technique or keep new leaves in thier container they will be ok. Ill post some of my set up pics to give a better idea. But leaves have made a huge difference in ease of care and how resilient they are. one of my containers I havent cleaned it since they was kegos. I just continue to layer the leaves and they eat the old leaves down to the stem. Any other faithful leaf users out there, I took on this project thinking they would be a pain in the a$$, but they are pretty easy next to roaches.
 
Im starting the same boat.

I have a 20ft tree outside my work (yes most of the staff think i lost my marbles). Im on my first batch of 500ish eggs (what ever 7 females layed in nov that i fridged). Im trying your technique of never cleaning and just letting the old leaves dry out and end up at the bottom of the bin. Im underestimating the amount the little buggers can eat! Even at 1 week old they are eating over 3ft of tree a day.

PS for sanitation i dunk my hands in a bowl of starsan. Its a cleaner for beer brewing to keep the beer from catching a cold before the alcohol level is high enough.
 
Oh yes that shocked me as we'll I have a couple hundred and now I'm looking around my apartment trying to think how ima fit all these fast growing huge silks in here. They are a little crowded now, a tip for collecting leaves is to pull from the base to the end, a lot of the times I get little branches though they are a pain when it comes to cleaning but it give them a little extra space then just straight leaves
 
Leaves are free, so that's hard to beat.

That being said, I have found that chow is easier to work with. The key is small batches every few days... I have found that as long as it is freshly prepared no die-off. I struggled with die-off for months before making this change.

The biggest advantage of chow is the density (a much smaller amount feeds for much longer). Also, the poop from leaves is much messier than the hard poop from chow, lol (which is also more sanitary).

I have to snatch my leaves from neighborhood trees under cover of darkness or at a local park, which despite being sadly thrilling for a married guy in his early thirties, is kind of inconvenient ;)
 
I keep my silks in a open bin and make sure they have food all the time. I don't clean up after them and they do fine. No die off. Just keep pileing leaves on.:)
 
I haven't ever had access to leaves so I use the chow. I just keep them at a stable temperature and low humidity with plenty of ventilation.
 
That's weird, I've always had hard poop with leaves, I know when they go in the fridge they collect moisture then I dry them out with paper towels.
 
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