Some sources suggest that wild silkworms will eat any plant matter, and that cultivated silkworms are only fed mulberry leaves to ensure that the silk they produce is pure white.
I will let K address your other question for now since I have only a minute, but did want to point out that there ARE NO WILD SILKWORMS of the
Genus species we are referring to here. The wild silk moths e.g.
Actias luna, Hyalophora cecropia, Antheraea polyphmeus, Atticus atlas, etc. (you have different species but many same genus (and a lot more) in S. Africa than we do in the states) are in the family Saturniidae and do produce silk (all caterpillars produce some even if it is just to secure their bodies inside a pupal shell) but it is not used industry wide yet many use it in smaller quantities. The ones we use as feeders are in the family Bombycidae and the silkworms are
Bombyx mori. These have been cultivated for centuries as I mentioned in previous post (#325) have a fascinating history(!) and are only raised by humans.
As for alternative foods...mulberry (
Morus spp., thus the species name) IS their main diet, and was WHEN they were wild. and produce strong white or yellow silk when fed on it. Most in Sericulture (cultivation of silk/silkmoths) will not use chow or other diets b/c it does produce an
inferior quality silk (different shades of brown, which is not as desired as it cannot be dyed) (see:
Sericulum.com for a discussion of why no chow).
In a pinch you can get by feeding them on carrots, I personally use butternut squash, some lettuces. If used exclusively or for the majority of time for their diet they will often have trouble pupating, spinning and if able to get that far in their life cycle will die within cocoon (more than the usual loss we all experience). If you never try to get them past the larval stage and feed them all off then it almost does not matter what you feed them because you are not looking to produce silk
. That said, their are the nutritional issues.
The thing to be VERY careful of if you are using one of the supplemental diet is that their environment does not get/stay too wet as NPV or other virus can easily occur - then you WILL have the die-off that someone (Tyler, I think) mentioned.
OK, gotta run!
lele
I tried to find someone to give them to, but it was cold then, and even though I left a heat pack in the box w/them on the porch, they died before the person came to get them. What a waste! I would have been able to keep them alive w/carrots until I could order more chow, and maybe gotten some eggs out of them.
ratio.
