Oh. My. Goodness. Pampering these no-longer-so-little pets multiple times a day as they munch through their leaves is a little on the dull side 7 weeks in.
Happily, there are less mouths to feed every day now. The picture above shows all remaining silkworms.
The big ones are seriously big! Some are still creating their cocoons. It is fascinating watching them start from the outside and gradually vanish into a home of their own making.
Some have finished the job and the cocoons are the same mix of yellow and white as last year for no discernible reason.
And… there are quite a few!
Local & Bespoke 
Is there any correlation between the silkworm characteristics and the colour of the cocoon, that you’ve noticed? Maybe the stripey ones produce gold cocoons, or maybe the smaller ones, or some such thing?
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Not that I can tell. Embarking on writing plain or striped on some tubes at the point where I can still tell!
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How do you get them to make their cocoons in the rolls?
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Once the silkworm starts to create silk I just drop it in the tube. Seems like the size is right. They just about always settle in.
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Cool
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I loved raising silkworms!! The hardest part was sourcing enough mulberry leaves. Luckily neighbours had some at that time. have a tree now but, from memory, I still dont think it would be enough. Loved the munching sound 🙂
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Hi Tina! They are funny little critters… But you are so right. Keeping the leaves up to them gets harder! Lovely to hear from you.
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