Real World: Feeding the Tiny Masters

Feeding the Tiny Masters:

The silkworms are a little over a week old now. There are SO MANY of them… and they eat so much! I’ve got three big trays set up with them, and it’s becoming clear that I need more trays soon – they are growing at a phenomenal rate. When I got them, they were tiny eggs, about the size of a steel pin-head or a 12-point period; now, they’re about 3/8″ long, and on their way up. Within the next three weeks, they will grow to be about 2 1/2 inches long, and as thick as my little finger, and eat up to a whole leaf apiece per day.

They demand feeding first thing in the morning, and again when I get home from work, and again before bed. When they get to the point of really munching through their food (about 2 weeks from now) I may need to make regular lunch trips home to feed again… they eat so fast because they’re making lots of silk proteins in preparation for spinning. I call them the Tiny Masters because they demand feeding so much, so often… they tend to kind of run your life for a month. Then, all at once, they’ll begin spinning – I’m going to have to prepare a little cocoon city for them to spin in, because I’ve only got enough paper tubes for about three dozen right now. A thousand is hardly going to fit!