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I dont have any silkworms yet but here goes a question i've been wondering about:

How do you clean out the droppings? Do you have to HAND PICK EACH worm out of the cage and sweep out the bucket? That could be 500 worms! How the heck do you effectively clean out their cage?

Hi-

The silkworms do best the with minimal handling. I grow mine in plastic shoeboxes, and clean out the boxes when needed about every two weeks or so. I know this may sound strange but to clean is bad with the silkworms. The worms will lay silk all over the top of the waste, so what I do is just pull the silk up and the worms are attached to the silk then dump the feces and put the worms back in. Once you get some silkworms going you will get the hang of it. For the most part the leftover dried food builds up in the middle of the box, and the feces are loose around that, makes for easy cleaning. Hope this helps!
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John W. Lucas

CHAMELEON PARADISE

CHAMELEONS ONLINE E-ZINE AUTHOR

Feeding Baby Chameleons
Caging Baby Chameleons

F. pardalis

Ambilobe Locale
Nosy Be Locale
Sambava Locale

Rhampholeon uluguruensis

Eggs Incubating-

F. pardalis - Ambilobe Locale

got SILKWORMS!

Photo © Chameleon Paradise 2003

Silkworm cages are easy to clean. They normally drop to the bottom of rubbermaid (what i use). I just lift them up and lace in secod rubbermaid. They spin silk so you can lift just about all of them out in a few handfuls (only takes a few minutes) and that's it. Wipe down first container (no chemicals or bleach) with paper towel or cloth.
You may want to wear surgical type gloves as popular believe says they can get bacteria easily from your hand contact and can/will die off.

I guess I'll have to wait and see. I just dont like the idea of picking up 500 or 1000 to clean the bins (because its lots of work-im not squeamish).

something that works for me....go to wal-mart, or michaels's, or some place that sells craft supplies, and get some of that plastic grid/mesh that people use to cross-stich...maybe crochet...anyway, cut it to size and lay it in the bottom of your box. 80-90% of the poop will fall through this mesh to the bottom, and you just pick up the whole grid without disturbing silkies, dump out the poop in the bottom, and thebn put the whole thing back in.
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Matt