Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi I really want to feed my pets silk worms but I don't have the money to buy the silkworm chow, I was wondering how hard it would be to have several mulberry trees indoors and just use leaves off of them? Is there a way to get the tree to produce leaves all year round?

As it is now I could go out to the trees around my house and get some as I know there is no pesticides and fertilizers around but that wouldn't help me in the winter, and that wouldn't help me with the babies who can't eat the tough older leaves.

I was thinking that having trees indoors would maybe supply me with a constant supply of both older tougher leaves and new leaves that the babies can chew through. I imagine that one tree wouldn't be enough but maybe 4 or 5 would be. I wouldn't need to sustain a ton of silkworms maybe a hundred or two a week would be fed off so I would probalby have to have several groups of silkworms each at a different life cycle so once one group was completely fed off another group would be read to be fed off.

I don't know how feasible it is to keep a mulberry tree inside. You would have to have good light, perhaps a greenhouse or someting, and lots of room. It may be possible to start seedlings and harvest them as needed or perhaps you could raise them to a given size and then start over. I personally think it would be a lot of work but perhaps it is something you would like to experiment with. I was pulling the seedlings that I weeded out of my lawn and flower beds for silkworm hatchlings last year and they had no problem eating them.

Marcia

Depending where you are the natural light cycle has a lot to do with raising any plant. If you were going to try it you might want to consider artifical lighting as well if you are going to try it year round. But by the time you do all the work of setting up and maintaining the plants it might be easier to get a part time job and by the worms

Bruce

np

Thanks guys I guess I'll just keep on feeding them what I have.

Ive read you can store leaves in the freezer (in baggies)

Try freezing some branches and using that. Let me know if it works. Im going to be raising my worms on chow.

First thing, mulberry trees grow very big. Taller than 1 story houses, so unless you have a super tall ceiling, it isn't feasible to keep one indoors. Lighting is another concern as well as having dead leaving falling in your house. You can buy younger trees at the nursery, but they don't have enough leaves to support alot of silkworms. You can probably check around your area to see if anyone has a mulberry tree and ask if you can take some from their tree and if they use pesticides.

Mulberry trees drop their leaves in fall. Sorry, nothing to be done about that. Mulberry leaves are the diet of silkworms, and although you can probably get them to eat other plants, it probably isn't going to be as good as them eating mulberry leaves. Also, if you want some moths, feeding it other plants may not allow them to make silk they need for the cocoons.

What I did for baby silkworms just hatched from the egg, I gave them some baby leaves from my own baby mulberry tree that I bought from the nursery, then switched them to small adult leaves and then full sized adult leaves when they got big enough. Worked out fine. Or you can use mulberry chow when they are younger. I did hate the smell of cooking it though... And it was too mushy for my preference. Maybe I will try to make some with agar agar to stiffen it up, but not sure how that will work out yet.

Silkworms are pigs. They eat and eat. They starve very fast. I had to give mine fresh food twice to three times a day. I always picked enough leaves for 2-3 days since you can always wash the leaves and store them in the fridge for 3 days in a sealed container.
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- Juli
Polliwog Design - Under construction.

You can root mulberry trees as well. I've got two large trees right now by rooting them. While they're not as small as seedlings, I take about a 2 to 3 foot branch, stick it into the ground as far as i can push it without breaking, and keep the ground around the area moist. Sometimes, they won't take root. Other times, they will. I don't know what the secret is, as I am not a plant expert, but the tortoises and uromastix love these leaves as well, and at times, I doubt one tree could have sustained their appetite.

Once you get them rooted, you could probably just have 8 or 10 potted and in your house, with some type of grow lights on. I'm not sure if they'll produce enough for you at this size though.

Good luck