CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Silkworm breeding conditions (What are the silkworm breeding conditions)

1. What are the growth environment requirements for silkworms?

Temperature: The temperature range for silkworm growth and development is 20-30℃. The suitable temperature for feeding and rearing is usually 27-28℃ for the first instar, 26-27℃ for the second instar, 25-26℃ for the third instar, 24-25℃ for the fourth instar, and 23-24℃ for the fifth instar. It should be kept at 24.5-25℃ in the early stage of cocooning and 24℃ in the late stage of cocooning. Humidity: The relative humidity is 95% in the first instar, and it decreases by 5-6% with each subsequent instar.

2. What conditions are needed to hatch silkworm eggs?

1. Warm and comfortable incubation place

Prepare a paper box for hatching silkworm eggs, cover the box with a layer of clean white paper, and place it in a warm place. If the climate is dry, sprinkle water on the white paper, but be careful not to sprinkle water on the silkworm eggs. The best temperature condition for silkworm eggs to hatch into larvae is 24-25 degrees. Keep the air circulating to provide a comfortable growth environment for the silkworms.

2. Pay attention to the situation at all times

The hatching time of each silkworm egg may be different. When the silkworm eggs are mature, they will crawl out by themselves. We need to pay attention to the hatching status of each silkworm egg at all times and separate the hatched larvae in time.

3. Prepare enough food

As soon as the silkworms crawl out, they need to be fed. We need to keep fresh mulberry leaves ready at all times. Once we find them crawling out, we gently brush the larvae on the mulberry leaves and they will eat by themselves.

4. Food Selection

The best food for silkworms is mulberry leaves. Lettuce leaves can also be fed. If you can't find mulberry leaves as a substitute, other leaves cannot be fed to silkworms. However, whether it is mulberry leaves or lettuce leaves, you need to wipe the leaves clean when feeding them. Do not feed them with yellow and rotten leaves, otherwise it will make the silkworms sick or even threaten their lives.

5. Keep it clean

Both adults and larvae need a clean living environment, especially newly hatched silkworms. Residual leaves and silkworm feces should be removed promptly. In particular, if diseased insects are found, they must be cleaned out in time to avoid infecting other silkworms.

3. What conditions are required for raising silkworms?

1. There must be a suitable mulberry garden. According to the current sericulture model, raising silkworms requires sufficient mulberry leaves. If there are no mulberry leaves, there is no way to raise silkworms well. Therefore, before starting to raise silkworms, you must first determine the source of mulberry leaves. When planting mulberry trees at home, pay attention to the selection of plots and try to make the mulberry gardens contiguous. This is very helpful for preventing silkworm diseases.

2. There must be a silkworm house for raising silkworms. The silkworm house can be said to be indispensable in the process of raising silkworms, just like mulberry leaves. If there is no suitable silkworm house, the silkworms will have no place to live.

3. You need silkworm tools, cocoon tools, silkworm medicine, etc.

4. Order an appropriate amount of silkworm seeds.

4. What are the conditions for a silkworm production base?

The most basic condition for a mulberry silkworm production base is to have unique mulberry resources.

5. What kind of environment should silkworms grow in?

Silkworms are best suited to living in a smoke-free, odor-free environment, and growing in a clean box without moisture. They are suitable for growing in an environment with a temperature range of 22-29 degrees Celsius, and the most suitable growth temperature is around 27 degrees Celsius. The breeding environment should be kept cool, ventilated, breathable, and pollution-free. Prevent mosquitoes, cockroaches, flies and other pests. Keep away from toxic and odorous items, and avoid burning mosquito coils, spraying insecticides, wind oil essence, perfume, etc. indoors.

6. How to hatch and raise silkworms?

First prepare a small box and put the eggs in it. The temperature should be between 22 and 25 degrees. Then poke a few holes in the box and sprinkle some water regularly, but not too much, or it will die. When you see the eggs are getting darker, it means the larvae are about to hatch. After receiving the silkworm seeds, place them in the prepared silkworm box. The silkworm box can usually be made of ordinary paper boxes, but make sure the box is clean and odor-free.

From the day the silkworm eggs are shipped out of the warehouse, they will naturally hatch into silkworms in about 11 days (including the shipping time) at room temperature of 21-29 degrees Celsius. The silkworms will have an appetite about 40 minutes after they hatch, and the feeding process should begin at this time. Take the prepared fresh tender mulberry leaves out of the refrigerator, wait for the mulberry leaves to return to room temperature, cut them into small pieces with a knife and put them in the silkworm box. The silkworms will automatically climb onto the mulberry leaves to eat. It usually takes about 27 days (divided into 5 ages) for silkworms to hatch and go up the mountain to make cocoons.

It is advisable to feed silkworms from the first to third instar with tender mulberry leaves, and silkworms from the fourth and fifth instars can use ordinary mulberry leaves. Silkworms are suitable for growing in an environment with a temperature range of 22-29 degrees Celsius, and their most suitable growth temperature is around 27 degrees Celsius. A silkworm eats about 25 grams of mulberry leaves in its lifetime. If you feed 40 silkworms, you only need 1 kilogram of mulberry leaves. However, in the actual feeding process, some mulberry leaves will be wasted, so more mulberry leaves will be needed.

After the fifth instar, silkworms stop eating mulberry leaves and start looking for a suitable place to spin silk and make cocoons (also called going up the mountain to make cocoons). In rural areas, straw hills or pine branches are generally used as silkworm hills. For silkworms raised as pets, a paper box divided into many small compartments can be used instead.

1. Mulberry leaf preservation

1. Place the mulberry leaves in the refrigerator (around 5 degrees Celsius) to prevent them from spoiling.

2. Tie the mouth of the plastic bag tightly to slow down the drying and dehydration of the mulberry leaves.

2. Feeding of Silkworms

1. After taking out the mulberry leaves from the refrigerator, you need to wait for a few minutes to allow the mulberry leaves to return to room temperature before feeding them.

2. Do not wash the mulberry leaves with water, keep them in their natural state.

3. When feeding second-instar silkworms, please use tenderer mulberry leaves, 1-2 leaves per day.

4. Feeding time can be chosen in the morning or at noon.

1. Do not catch the silkworms with your hands. Use the soft bristles of a brush to drive them away.

2. Clean the silkworm house every day.

3. The silkworm house should be placed in a cool place (around 25 degrees Celsius).

1. If the silkworms are newly hatched (ant silkworms), use slightly tenderer mulberry leaves.

2. Silkworms cannot eat wet mulberry leaves. The surface of the mulberry leaves must be dried.

3. Mulberry leaves are best for silkworms, because eating other leaves may cause some problems for the silkworms (stunted development?)

4. When raising silkworms, you must not use pesticides or anything like that at home! You must not let them eat mulberry leaves that may contain pesticides! So when I raised silkworms in the past, I would wash the mulberry leaves first, wipe them dry, and then feed them to the silkworms.

5. The best place to raise silkworms is a box with high sides. You can put some paper towels underneath (to make cleaning easier). But be careful. If you don’t choose the right container, the silkworms may escape (I have had this experience). Also, make sure it is breathable.

6. When raising silkworms, you must prepare a lot of mulberry leaves. If they are just hatched, it is okay, but when they grow up a little, the silkworms will eat very fast! It is best not to let them starve, otherwise they may run away. (In fact, if there are enough mulberry leaves for the silkworms to eat and they are not hungry, they will not run away even if there is no container)

7. Silkworms will shed their skin every once in a while. It is best not to touch them and let them shed their skin on their own. 8. If the silkworms become a little transparent, no longer like to eat mulberry leaves, and crawl around, they may be about to make cocoons. It is best to put some branches, small sticks, etc. in the box to facilitate the cocooning of the silkworms. Put it in a paper box or a small sieve for sifting rice. If you use a sieve, put some paper pads on the bottom of the sieve.

Additional information:

Silkworm (scientific name: Bombyx mori) is an insect of the order Lepidoptera. It is the main source of silk and plays an important role in human economic life and cultural history. It is native to China and is commonly known as silkworm or nymph in southern China and Taiwan.

The silkworm is called "silkworm" in English because it uses silk to make cocoons. A cocoon is made from a strand of silk that is 300-900 meters long. Today, my country's silk production and exports account for more than 70% of the world's total, and it has become a major silk country that can dominate the world's silk price trend.

Silkworms are metamorphosis insects, the most common of which is the mulberry silkworm, also known as the domestic silkworm, one of the economic insects that feeds on mulberry leaves and spins silk and makes cocoons. The silkworm originated in China, and its development temperature is 7-40℃, and the optimum temperature for breeding is 20-30℃. Silkworms feed on mulberry leaves, and their bodies turn white after eating mulberry leaves continuously. After a period of time, they begin to shed their skins. The molting lasts for about a day, and they do not eat or move like sleeping. This is called "hibernation". After molting once, it is the second-instar larvae. It grows one year older every time it molts. The larvae molt four times in total, becoming fifth-instar larvae, and then eat mulberry leaves for 8 days to become mature silkworms, and begin to spin silk and make cocoons.

Integrated control technology of silkworm diseases

1. Technical Introduction

The basic principle of silkworm disease prevention is "prevention first, comprehensive prevention". The method is to focus on disinfection and clean feeding, cut off the path of pathogen transmission, prevent silkworm infection, improve feeding conditions, strengthen silkworms, improve disease resistance, etc., combine disease prevention with feeding technology, and take the path of comprehensive prevention to achieve real results.

2. Technical points

1. Disinfection

1. Disinfection before raising silkworms: Thoroughly clean the silkworm room by sweeping, washing, scraping, brushing, and disinfecting. Disinfectants can be toxic dispersants, chlorine smoke purifiers, or sprayed with 2% formaldehyde and 1% effective chlorine water, and ventilated for more than 24 hours. Silkworm plaques, wire nets, etc. suitable for steam disinfection should be steamed in the stove, and the temperature should be maintained for more than 30 minutes after reaching 100℃, and then taken out of the stove to dry for use; bamboo poles, silkworm racks, etc. should be soaked in a disinfection pool with bleaching powder containing 1.0% effective chlorine for more than 20 minutes, and then brought into the silkworm room in a wet state to dry; other utensils should be washed and exposed to sunlight several times.

2. Disinfection during the silkworm period: (1) Disinfection of silkworm bodies and silkworm sacs. The period from silkworms’ emergence to the early stage of disease is the key period for prevention and control. Use of a mixture of disease prevention No. 1, chloramine, fresh lime powder, and chloramine fumigant (open windows for ventilation 1 hour before fumigation) can prevent viral, fungal, and bacterial diseases, and can also reduce the chance of infection of silkworm sacs with microparticle diseases. (2) Isolation of weak silkworms. Various infectious silkworm diseases can cause silkworms to grow slowly and develop unevenly. The excrement and blood of diseased silkworms often contain a large number of pathogens, which become the main source of infection of silkworm sacs. Therefore, eliminating weak silkworms can effectively control the spread of silkworm diseases.

(3) Establish a hygiene and disease prevention system to control the spread of pathogens. ① Unsterilized silkworm tools are not allowed to enter the silkworm room. Tools for picking and transporting mulberry leaves must be strictly separated. ② Use plastic sheets to separate silkworm feces during sand removal. Disinfect the silkworm nets that are replaced after sand removal before reuse. ③ Change shoes when entering the silkworm room, and place disinfectants at the door of the silkworm room to disinfect the soles of shoes. Change shoes when entering the mulberry storage room. ④ Wash hands before tending to mulberry leaves and after sand removal. ⑤ Disinfect the floors of the silkworm room and mulberry storage room once a day with bleach solution (containing 1.0% effective chlorine). ⑥ Seal the discarded silkworms and put the silkworm feces into a pit for fermentation to prevent spread.

3. Disinfection after returning to the mountain: After the silkworm period is over, the waste with no use value, such as silkworm feces, rotten cocoons, and old cocooning tools, should be burned or piled up for retting. The valuable tools should go through the process of primary disinfection → cleaning → secondary disinfection to ensure that they are clean and free of pathogens. The silkworm room, mulberry storage room, cocooning room and other environments should be carefully disinfected as before the silkworm period.