Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been thinking about trying to start up a silkworm colony and I want to feed them Mulberry leaves instead of the chow but from what I have been told the silkworms will only eat Mulberry leaves from a certain type of Mulberry tree. My neighbor has a Mulberry tree and he said it is a Morus Alba Chaparral Mulberry, will Silkworms eat leaves from this strain of weeping Mulberry tree? Thanks in advance!

Regard's,
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Daniel Blough
D&D Dragons
dmblough@comcast.net

is what they eat. I don't believe other kinds have been successful in trials of feeding them, but you never know what is being done these days.

An added note: I would make dern sure (and have chow around, just in case) the trees you and someone else are identifying as being sufficient are positive i.d.'s before relying on it to feed silkies.

I was told on another forum that silkies haven't been in the wild for a lonnnnng time, but I grew up in extreme south Texas and there were silkworms around. I'm trying to find out from my parents if someone had a farm around there; maybe that's why they were around. In any case, I do remember that we had mulberry trees in the yard, but they were only on the one - White Mulberry.

Hope you find out more and let us know!

Denise
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Denise (Mom) and/or Jared (son)
Take care!

1.0 Ball Python - Jake
1.0 Bearded Dragon - Merlin
1.0 Pixie Frog - Pixel
2.0 Chinese Fire belly Newts - Fred n' Ed, and Ed n' Fred
1.0 Black Cat - Shorty
1.0 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa - coming soon (completing brumation with present owner before joining our home)
0.0.4 Tanks waiting on us to decide what is going in them! LOL

n/p
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Denise (Mom) and/or Jared (son)
Take care!

1.0 Ball Python - Jake
1.0 Bearded Dragon - Merlin
1.0 Pixie Frog - Pixel
2.0 Chinese Fire belly Newts - Fred n' Ed, and Ed n' Fred
1.0 Black Cat - Shorty
1.0 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa - coming soon (completing brumation with present owner before joining our home)
0.0.4 Tanks waiting on us to decide what is going in them! LOL

they eat the leaves from it without any problems and are growing like crazy!

Don't know if this helps any, but thought I would share the info
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Lisa
Cricket free babies!
www.beginnersbasics.com

Hi Lisa,

Where do you buy a mulberry tree/bush? How old a tree does it need to be to produce enough leaves for a good size bunch of silkies?

If you dont mind, how much time do you spend on raising silkies and how big a colony is it?

Thanks so much
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Bennett

www.beardiedragon.com

I have called around to different nurseries and found one that could get me one for $45. So you might want to call around but if we have time to grow one then I found a web site that we can buy from at different sizes yet still small. I hope this helps
http://gurneys.com/product.asp?pn=08578

Gabby
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1.1 Bearded Dragons-Jessie and "Goldberg"
1.0 Geo 4yr orange munchkin
0.2 Dogs- Wendy 7yr Lab/Tori 4 yr Boxer
4.1 Kids plus Hubby

>>Hi Lisa,
>>
>>Where do you buy a mulberry tree/bush? How old a tree does it need to be to produce enough leaves for a good size bunch of silkies?
>>
>>If you dont mind, how much time do you spend on raising silkies and how big a colony is it?
>>
>>Thanks so much
>>-----
>>Bennett
>>

You can buy a Mulberry tree from specialty nurseries. Most of them are in South Carolina and Georgia. A lot of them have web sites you can order through. I have seen Mulberry trees on ebay from time to time also.

By good size .... I am going to figure around 10,000 silkies at a time ... The tree would have to be atleast 6 - 7 years old to supply enough leaves for them to be fed exclusively without using the chow.

I usually only allow about 30 worms to cocoon, I figure that about a dozen will be female. Each female will lay between 200 - 300 eggs. I don't really spend that much time at all caring for the silkies, just feed them a couple times a day and clean the tub / tank once a week.

Hope that helps
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Lisa
Cricket free babies!
www.beginnersbasics.com

www.tytyga.com/main.html
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Lisa
Cricket free babies!
www.beginnersbasics.com

A white Mulberry tree today from a local nursery and it only cost me $5, the tree is about 8-10 feet tall and there is no leaves on it yet but it has tons of buds so I am hoping with the correct care and a bunch of sunlight it will take off and sprout a bunch of leaves....
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Daniel Blough
D&D Dragons
dmblough@comcast.net

LOL.. Thanks Lisa, I figured there might be more out there that others have tried.

Also, just a FYI and affirmation on when I suggested that the i.d.'s of the tree be positive... as I have been doing a lot of research on this now that I have been told the worms that were around when I was growing up were probably not silkworms, I have learned that many of the trees have accepted common names that are not what they actually are. (Ok, that was a run-on sentence, hope it was understandable.) For instance, I said white mulberry, and many call the black mulberry white, and the white ones black. Are they the same? Not in the research I have done, as in scientific names; but then I am not sitting here looking at a nursery or specimens of them, either. That said, a horticulturist, or someone with a nursery background is better equipped to give more facts on this.

Denise
-----
Denise (Mom) and/or Jared (son)
Take care!

1.0 Ball Python - Roy (name change)
1.0 Bearded Dragon - Merlin
1.0 Pixie Frog - Pixel
2.0 Chinese Fire belly Newts - Fred n' Ed, and Ed n' Fred
1.0 Black Cat - Shorty
1.0 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa - coming soon (completing brumation with present owner before joining our home)
0.0.4 Tanks waiting on us to decide what is going in them! LOL