Silkworms and Mulberry leaves

[Nicodemayo]

I live in the suburbs of Atlanta and i was wondering about what you guys thought of this idea. I plan on ordering some silkworm eggs in petri dishes when it starts to warm up and leaves start coming back on the trees. Ive read up on hatching them and feeding them and when i saw a picture of mulberry leaves being devoured by silkworms i recognized them as something i see all the time in the summer. Paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) grow EVERYWHERE around here and after further research they were introduced to Georgia in the late 1700's when settlers had silkworm colony's to produce silk to ship back to England. ANYWAY these plants are actually on the "infestation" list in georgia and at any given time i could walk into a patch of woods and see tons of this stuff. You guys think i should capitalize on Georgia's mulberry tree infestation as opposed to buying silkworm chow?

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Absolutely!
Provided you can collect pesticide free leaves.

-Brad

 

[Ashley]

That's freaking awesome. How lucky are you...? It would be one step easier for you to breed your own colony, eh?

 

[Nicodemayo]

I would never collect them from someones yard but theres woods and parks all around here. Im definitely gonna try this out. I'll probably take to the woods every couple of weeks and gather tons of leaves both big and small. The babies need smaller softer leaves because their jaw is not as strong.

 

[mika]

You know they sell those on Ebay. The leaves... Hmmm...

 

[Nicodemayo]

haha. I looked around more about mulberry leaves and actually both paper and red mulberry trees are widely found in the southeastern united states. Red mulberry is actually native while paper mulberry was introduced from china and Japan. Red mulberrys are thick in Florida. My parents have a huge mulberry tree in the side yard of a summer house they own in Florida. I plan on being there most of my spring break(im stripping that damn tree haha). Any of you Florida residents are in luck if you know where to look and what to look for.

 

[chris]

I read silkworms prefer white mulberry. This would only be a problem if you try to switch them to silkworm chow or to red or black mulberry. Ive heard of red white and black mulberry but not paper mulberry. it'd be interesting to see if they preferred the white over paper. it's great you can feed them that, save you some $$$

 

[lbesok]

I wonder if anyone could provide pictures so others could easily identify them

 

[LaserGecko]

I read silkworms prefer white mulberry./QUOTE]

I also read that they won't eat the leaves of the fruitless mulberry trees.

WRONG!

They chowed down on them like there was no tomorrow. (Alas, for some of them, that was true!)

 

[Nicodemayo]

So im assuming they will chow down on paper mullberry? Any experience with this?

 

[RhettusMaximus]

mulberry trees

I've fed my silkies mulberry leaves to save money before, it gets to be a hassle to do it this way for 3 reasons:

1.) you have to collect fresh leaves almost daily. They eat WAAAY more leaves than they do wet food.

2.) cleanings up the old leaves and picking the silkworms out is a BIG job. The silkworms spin silk and the leaves all bunch together catching all of the feces. Then you have to get all of the silkworms off of the old leaves in order to put fresh ones in there. You lose silkworms this way if you're not careful because they hide very well even in a stripped leaf.

3.) The silkies grow MUCH slower on a fresh mulberry leaf diet than they do a wet food diet.

Positives:
you do save money (consider how much time it takes to collect leaves and switch out the old ones though)

 

[brandaleon]

work work work

the only thing that sucks about collecting mulberry leaves is that it is laborious. You have to collect the leaves and then clean them with a bleach solution. It is all too much effort. Yes it will save you money but how much time do you want to have to waste on a feeder. It takes alot of time to care for a chameleon properly, now you increase that time cause of what is necessary for the silkworms. I think the chow saves me time. I am busy so time is money; but every one is different. How much commitment do you have is what it boils down too.

 

[Dave Weldon]

Howdy,

Right now I'm using chow since the leaves are gone until next season. I usually pick around 100 leaves at a time. I soak them in water for an hour or so, shake off the excess water and then stack in a garbage bag and refrigerate. They seem to stay viable for at least 2 weeks if they don't get eaten first . I drove around town until I finally found a few trees. I asked the homeowners if I could harvast from time-to-time and they practially begged me to pick as many as I could . I try to spread-out the picking so that I'm not stripping branches. I recommend carefully snapping them off right at the branch so that there isn't any damage.

I usually let the silkworms move themselves from eaten stems onto new leaves and then remove the stems after they have moved. I use the plastic needlepoint screen method of housing silkies so that the poop just falls through to the bottom of the tank. Works ok.