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Silkworm drama…

Right on schedule on little eggs started hatching…Sept 29th

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These little guys are called “Kego” in Japan, and translates to “hairy baby”. See detailed info on the website WormSpit.

I am feeding the Mulberry leaves although it is starting to cool down here in Southern Indiana. I have bought the dehydrated “silkworm chow” yummy, in case we need it. I have gotten different opinions on this from “you can’t change from leaves to chow, but can change from chow to leaves” begin the predominant opinion. I talked to one guy who said his ate either, as long as they had food.

I bought the “Zebra silkworms” which said they were stronger, and more disease resistant. This sounded like a quality I would look for in a tomato plant, so I thought I would be a good idea.

Hopefully I will not kill as many worms as I did fish when I started with aquariums.

Oct 2, blast of cold air last night, I didn’t know that the #1 cause of silkworm death is temperature. OK so I had 1000 eggs. I didn’t need 1000 silkworms, right?

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But I don’t want 1000 dead silkworms…..Crap#$%# This is not good for my Karma!

OK…..Oct 13th021 Starting over, 500 eggs, one woman, two heat lamps, lots of website info…..

Four days after receiving the eggs, and with heat and a thermometer, keeping the eggs at approx. 80 degrees.

011 Oct 16th Babies again, now they are bigger than before….

And so very hungry, very, very hungry…

026 Oct 21st Bigger….(bad photo, they were “feeling” photogenic tonight)

Trying to keep them warm and happy..

More later.

Get your knitting out!!

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Comments

  1. ~ Phyllis ~10/22/2009

    Vicki,
    This is so exciting. Please keep us posted on the little silkies.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Walden10/22/2009

    Sorry about your rough start, at least you are sticking with it. Hope this time around goes better!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr Puffy's Knitting Blog:10/22/2009

    Fascinating. It's like having an ant farm. I used to put tomato worms in a jar with leaves until they turned into chrysalis. So interesting to watch the process. I'll be curious how this project progresses!

    ReplyDelete
  4. evel dread10/22/2009

    Wow! Cant wait to see more!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kathleen10/23/2009

    How long before we have cocoons? And then...500 dead worms!? Wah! *sigh* Such is the life of a silk worm....

    ReplyDelete
  6. Teresa10/24/2009

    Hmmm... you are having some drama aren't you? :-)

    Very interesting. I look forward to updates so I can follow your progress. What a brave soul you are!

    ReplyDelete

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