silkworm eggs started hatching, too late to chill rest ?

So my brother and I are trying to raise some silk worms and it seems that yours are doing really well! I had a question about when they start spinning. We're coming up to the point where they're about to start spinning and want to know what you use for them to spin on. I've heard paper towel rolls and egg cartons. We have paper towel rolls in there for them but they don't seem to be interested in it. I'm pretty sure they are at the point where they'll be trying to cocoon as they've stopped eating as much. I've been feeding them mulberry leaves. Would you have any suggestions for us to try?

They are pretty random....I let them do their own thing and then worry about extracting the cocoon a couple of days after the cocoon started getting builtup.

Some of my current batch - fed fresh and blanched mulberry leaves (mostly blanched) are starting to pupate now too.

kingofnobbys":9e17j7id said:

They are pretty random....I let them do their own thing and then worry about extracting the cocoon a couple of days after the cocoon started getting builtup.

Some of my current batch - fed fresh and blanched mulberry leaves (mostly blanched) are starting to pupate now too.

Click to expand...

Oh ok. I was worried that if they didn't wanna cocoon in the rolls that they'd just be like "screw it" and die.
I didn't realize how many mulberry trees were in our neighborhood until we started getting silkworms. One of our neonate even cut branches off his tree for us. We have 3 gallon bags of blanched leaves in the freezer. Gonna go back one more time before the leaves fall off to grab enough to make it through winter hopefully.

emberNchester":1l9mlx23 said:

kingofnobbys":1l9mlx23 said:

They are pretty random....I let them do their own thing and then worry about extracting the cocoon a couple of days after the cocoon started getting builtup.

Some of my current batch - fed fresh and blanched mulberry leaves (mostly blanched) are starting to pupate now too.

Click to expand...

Oh ok. I was worried that if they didn't wanna cocoon in the rolls that they'd just be like "screw it" and die.
I didn't realize how many mulberry trees were in our neighborhood until we started getting silkworms. One of our neonate even cut branches off his tree for us. We have 3 gallon bags of blanched leaves in the freezer. Gonna go back one more time before the leaves fall off to grab enough to make it through winter hopefully.

Click to expand...

I blanched my leaves back in March and apart from a little "frost" in some spots when I get them out and separate the leaves they look good as when I froze them. Glad someone tried the blanching technique - did you do it based on my thread ?

.... I don't think I'll be popular with silkworm chow sellers over there if blanching mulberry leaves catches on .....

kingofnobbys":3hgtxcb7 said:

emberNchester":3hgtxcb7 said:

kingofnobbys":3hgtxcb7 said:

They are pretty random....I let them do their own thing and then worry about extracting the cocoon a couple of days after the cocoon started getting builtup.

Some of my current batch - fed fresh and blanched mulberry leaves (mostly blanched) are starting to pupate now too.

Click to expand...

Oh ok. I was worried that if they didn't wanna cocoon in the rolls that they'd just be like "screw it" and die.
I didn't realize how many mulberry trees were in our neighborhood until we started getting silkworms. One of our neonate even cut branches off his tree for us. We have 3 gallon bags of blanched leaves in the freezer. Gonna go back one more time before the leaves fall off to grab enough to make it through winter hopefully.

Click to expand...

I blanched my leaves back in March and apart from a little "frost" in some spots when I get them out and separate the leaves they look good as when I froze them. Glad someone tried the blanching technique - did you do it based on my thread ?

.... I don't think I'll be popular with silkworm chow sellers over there if blanching mulberry leaves catches on .....

Click to expand...

No actually I had stumbled across the results from an experiment conducted on it. I just tried it and we still have a lot of leaves to go through, I'm curious to see if I did it right. I think I may have left them in the hot water too long before putting them in the cold. I wish I came across your thread before I did though!
Although I did come across blanching the silkworms and idk if I could do it! they're just too cute! I don't wanna cause them pain x.x

bit busy here
- got a batch of med and large worms (maybe 70) munching away
- got maybe 70 cocoons that will produce moths in the next few weeks
- got a batch of 12 months up to a week old doing their thing and laying lots of golden yellow eggs
- started another moth tub (another dozen of so months) this morning.
+
keeping 2 teenage beardies separated (bit of craziness and excitement with them two this afternoon LOL .... forgot how fast they can move !!!)
keeping Rex happy
keeping my two big BTS happy.

Back into the silkworms .

Splashed out and bought 100 (mixed mediums and smalls) , yes I have eggs to hatch in the fridge but no FRESH LEAVES available and I don't want to mess about with Silkworm Chow atm .
Bought the worms from AUSSIEFAUNA (100 for $45 which is a tad pricey) , still using the blanched frozen mulberry leaves from Mar 2016.
..... but better than
PISCUS BRAND QLD
or AMAZINGAMAZON VIC
or PEACEFULSILKWORMS CAIRNS FNE QLD
all about $1 each
or EVERYTHINGSILKWORMS (who want 70c each , but are out of stock of worms atm ).

Found if I lay some paper toweling over the ventilated 4L tub's lid , the aircon doesn't dry the leaves out and they stay soft (so far it's they've been in the tub since last Thursday and no mould and no deccicated leaves , allows air ventilation but re-tards deciccation of the blanched leaves) and the silkworms are happily munching away on them.

Each of my lizards is getting 2 medium silkworms (2inch long) each day with the greens and their daily cricket rations.
They all disappear the silkworms pretty quick. Only things that they like more are superworms (for the beardies) and cultivated escargots (for the bluetongues).

Two x 2 inch (large) silkworms = 3.4g

Found someone in Nth Sydney who still had leaves on their mulberry tree , yay ....!! now have 150 fresh mulberry leaves , so no more need to use chow.

Winter solstice soon , was very surprised to find I can still get fresh mulberry leaves in the middle of winter ..

Down to my last dozen or so silkworms , already have 6 cocoons .
Cutting Peppa, Toothless and the two BTS back to one large silkworm per day + crickets and adding supers as treats again for now.

So time to order in another 50 mixed silkworms WHILE THEY ARE STILL "ON-SALE" and to hatch some of the silkworm eggs I've had in the fridge since October 2016 (guessing maybe 1000 eggs ?? on that piece of paper towel).


Hey ... might as well strike while the iron is hot and I still have 100 - 120 fresh leaves in the crisper in the big fridge/freezer in the spare bedroom. Would be terrible waste of leaves to not get more worms and hatch a bunch of my own.
Yes , I could blanch and freeze the remaining mulberry leaves for later if I chose to.

The baby worms prefer the leaves fresh , they will munch on the blanched / frozen / thawed leaves but seem to do better on the fresh leaves than on either chow or blanched leaves.

Finally .... the eggs I took out of the fridge on the 26th June (which were laid in October 2016) , have started hatching .... was starting to think they were stuffed (too dried out in the fridge , or I should have added a bit of soggy paper towel to boost the humidity in the airtight 1L tube, even squashed a few to see if they were moist inside).

Took 12 days to incubate ( room temp 27oC during days, 23-24oC overnight ), no special measures, simply took eggs out of the ziplock bag straight into a F10ed take away food tub , lid on (nice and air tight) and left to do their thing..

There be baby silkworms in there , so in went a few nice tender slivers of fresh mulberry leaves ==> happy baby silkworms. Five minutes later , the left strips have baby catepillas on them , speedy little guys , must have been hungry .

Going to have some very spoilt skinks and beardies , I might even curtail the crickets for a while when these silkworms are getting to about 2 inches long ....and just give silkworms and greens.

1 day old silkworks today


the hatching tub --- can't be simpler....



Up close , still lots incubating and getting ready to hatch.

Still got some fresh mulberry leaves, but down to the last shopping bag full now so conserving them and only giving the leaves to the baby silkworms and small silkworms, until I can find someone who has leaves on their mulberry tree.

Since I've used up all the blanched / frozen mulberry leaves a while ago I've had to go to chow for the big silkworms, some are forming cocoons.

So got thousands of eggs from last October in the fridge.
Baby silkworms up to 1 week old on fresh leaves.
Small silkworms on fresh leaves.
Large silkworms on chow, feeding them once per day (in the hope they will mature a little slower).
Cocoons being formed.
Cocoons incubating.
Moths busy laying eggs.
All this in the back corner of my coffee table.

Quite the silkworm empire you're building!

1 week old baby worms are 5mm long. Skeletonising leaves overnight.


<< perfect size for new born beardie hatchlings IMO.

My worm empire

Moths laying eggs and cocoons


Small silks ( < 1.5in ) in one 1L tub , baby worms in the other , both in airtight tubs.


Baby worms (under 1 week old, still some eggs hatching in 1L airtight tub).


4 litre ventilated freezer tub for the medium and large silkworms


Lid off



The empire :
silkworms , mealworms (baby size about 2 months old in the 1.5L ventilated tub under my small tubs) and superworms in the bottom 4L ventilated tub.