How to Rear Silk From a Silkworm

Ask your local spinning or weaving organizations whether they have silkworm eggs for sale; if not, they may know where you can buy them. Once you have your eggs, ensure you have enough space available to avoid overcrowding before they start to hatch. Ideally, 100 silkworms need about half a square meter (about 2-1/2 square feet) of tray space. The leaves of a three-year-old white-fruited mulberry tree are best to produce the finest quality silk from your silkworms. However, all silkworms will be happy with any type of mulberry leaves you feed them.

Ensure your silkworms are in a well-ventilated area, but keep them out of direct sunlight. The ideal temperature for rearing silkworms is between 70 and 80° F. Feed young silkworms a constant supply of very soft leaves with the hard stems removed. Under-feeding can adversely affect the quality of silk and make the silkworms sick because they'll tend to ''binge'' the next time they're fed.

Provide small containers -- plastic trays or shoeboxes -- for your adult silkworms to start spinning their cocoons in once they've reached their maximum size (about one month after they've hatched). You'll know they're ready to spin because they start to move slowly and seek out corners where it's simplest for them to make a cocoon. After three days, the cocoon is complete and the silkworm has disappeared inside; it is now transforming itself from caterpillar to chrysalis or pupa, the stage between the larvae and adult in an insect.

Select a small portion of your cocoons (at least 25) which will be used for hatching into moths and laying the next generation of eggs. To ensure these ''rescued'' cocoons represent an equal proportion of male and female cocoons, sex them by differentiating the male cocoons (smaller, more pointed) from the females (oval, more rounded).

Place the majority of the cocoons in a paper bag and insert them into an oven at 180° F for three hours. This will kill the chrysalids as quickly and humanely as possible; this has to be done because the emerging moth will excrete a solvent that destroys the silk in the cocoon.

Place the cocoons in a pan of nearly boiling water -- a pan is preferable to a pot because cocoons float, so a lot of water isn't necessary. There isn't much danger of the cocoons getting burned if they touch the sides of the pan; instead, the most important task is locating the stray strands of silk which drift away from the cocoon. Use tweezers to gain hold of the silk strands and a pencil or similar object to unravel the silk from the cocoon. Once the cocoon has unraveled, dispose of the chrysalids.

Sell your raw silk to silk mills to be dyed and woven into cloth but unless you have several mulberry trees and labor to help out, don't expect much profit for your efforts. However, as very little silk is manufactured in North America, there's huge potential for the ambitious, particularly if you can keep labor costs down. In addition, schools and craft groups are usually eager to hear from those who can make a profit from homegrown silk.