Jodykersten Joey 
45 Posts
Hi guys, here's a little how to on breeding your own silk worms at home.
Silkworms will grow as much as you feed them and can live up to a week without food. However, they will lose hydration, so to keep a healthy silkworm you must feed at least once a day.
Temperature:
Keep them at a temperature of about 78 to 88 degrees, but be careful that there is not a lot of condensation in the container. This humidity can cause mold to form and kill your worms.
Allow the food to dry completely daily before placing the new wet chow on top of the old and the worms. They will move onto the new chow by themselves. Clean the container once every two to three days by pulling off the silky threads and emptying it of the poop. Make sure you always wash your hands before handling them.
Enclosure:
They can be kept in a Tupperware-like container without any substrate. Make sure you’re not crowding them or some will not grow due to they won’t be allowed to eat.
A healthy silkworm will eat for 26-30 days and then start weaving a cocoon.
Breeding:
When the silkworms are ready to weave their cocoon, they become a yellowish/brownish color. The skin is really tight, almost as if to burst. At this point they have stopped eating.
Before the caterpillar begins weaving, it will empty its belly of all excess liquid by releasing a brownish wet substance.
You will notice them moving their heads in a figure eight. They have a small spinner on the lip through which they release the silk.
You can slice toiler paper rolls into rings for the silkworm to weave its cocoon in the opening. I transfer my worms when they are ready to weave into another container and they weave on the edge of the receptacle. You can also place dried branches on the container and they will climb onto the branches to weave.
It takes three days for a firm cocoon.
Once the cocoon has been woven, place it in a different container lined with paper towels.
The moths will start emerging after about 21 days. They emerge only at dawn by spitting a brownish/reddish liquid on the silk to dissolve it and pushing through. Each moth will urinate a reddish liquid as soon as they emerge. When dried this looks like a blood stain. Their wings will be furled and limp, so be careful not to pick the moth up at this point. Once the wings are unfurled and hardened, transfer the moth to a different container, also lined with paper towels.
It’s a messy thing.
The female is usually bigger around, and sometimes longer, than the male. The male will flap their wings quite a bit. The female attracts the male by releasing pheromones through an opening in their belly. The males have olfactory hairs on their antennae that help them detect the chemicals.
The moths don’t fly, don’t eat or drink. Their only purpose is to mate and lay eggs. They will live only a week.
Once a male finds a female, they will stay attached for about a day. They separate and while the female lays her eggs, the male will find another female. Sometimes another male will grab the same female before she starts laying.
If you have more females than males, at this point you can transfer the female to another container where she can lay her eggs. This way, the male will find another female, therefore allowing more females to mate and hopefully giving you more eggs. Try to watch carefully and allow the females to mate only twice. Once they have laid their eggs the second time, you can feed to your dragon. They will not live much longer to lay more eggs.
Each female lays between 200 to 500 eggs. Replace the paper towel when eggs have been laid.
The eggs are a bright lemon yellow. Wait three days. The eggs that turn black are fertile, the eggs that don’t turn are infertile. Because in the wild the moths would lay their eggs in the fall and hatch in the spring, you will need to place the eggs n a zip loc bag - in the crisper of your fridge. Make sure you date the baggie. It is said you can keep in the refrigerator at least three weeks and up to 5 years, but I have only kept up to a year.
After the 3 weeks, take out the amount you want and place in a deli container. Keep warm. (I usually put it on top of my beardie’s tank.) Punch holes for air. Again, be careful mold does not form.
The eggs will hatch within 1 week to 21 days. If you look closely, they are ready to hatch when you can see the inside of the egg turning a light gray.
The new silkworm hatchlings look like tiny little moving pieces of string. They only eat Mulberry tree leaves or the prepared chow you can buy.
If you use the leaves, make sure you only feed the young early leaves to the baby caterpillars. At this point, their jaw muscles are not strong enough to eat the mature leaf.
Change the leaves 3 times a day and make sure they have no moisture at all or your silkworm babies will drown. The babies are too weak to move from the old to the new leaf, so you will have to transfer them. Be very careful while doing this. After 5 days, they will be able to move onto the new leaf by themselves. Another option is to place the new leaf directly on top of the old.
Keep warm and keep feeding and your worms will grow to a healthy size in no time.
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