Silkworm/grated Carrot Failed!

[chrisandpugs]

Hi everybody!
This is the most current update regarding my experiment feeding my silkworms on grated carrots for the past 3 weeks.

My silkworms are dying....So weird....They were still doing fine 4 days ago and all of a sudden, I'm finding lots of striveled up, dead mushy silks! I do discharge and put in fresh grated carrots every 3-4 days so the food source is not old. My theory is that nothing is better than the real stuff that they are meant to eat: Mulberry leaves and that carrots obviously are nutrient deficient and will eventually kill them!! Interestingly, none of my silks grew longer than 1 inch in size and I noticed that gradually over time, fewer of them ever molted by climbing on the sides of the container. Even though they looked healthy for awhile, they all seem to lack the fatty bulky body of my other silkworms that are still being fed on mulberry mash. They are still molting and growing.

P.S: I did put some of my Silks on grated Collard Green and all of those did poorly after 2-3 days on the diet that I just gave up and threw them all away because of the stink and it was obvious that they were not really eating any of it!!


Christine

 

[lele]

Not sure how you keep your silkies, but as I'd mentioned in another threads that carrot, lettuce and squash contain a lot of water which can mean death for your silkies. All the alternative foods are fine for a week or two if you run out of chow or leaves but not as their staple. All plants have varied nutrients and just like other inverts they all have different requirements and many species have highly specialized diet.

The silkworm we rear as feeders is the species that is the mainstay in the silk industry and have been cultivated for centuries by humans - if there was a better way it would have been found by now

Take out the healthy ones you have remaining and get them back on chow or leaves so you don't lose them all.

Thanks for sharing your experiment

lele

 

[TylerStewart]

if there was a better way it would have been found by now

Couldn't have said it better myself. Any better long term solution would have popped up by now, as it's not simple to harvest the amounts of mulberry that they need, and even harder to process the chow.