Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Meet my new pets...

...the silkworms!

Unfortunately I was out when they arrived so Hodmandod Minor and Senior had to sort them out (put them in a larger container, grate the White Mulberry Leaves food and warm them up a bit).

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

But are the snails willing to be friends?

Thu Jan 15, 05:51:00 am  
Blogger Clare Dudman said...

So far, so good, Marly. Since silk worms eat 30 000 times their weight in Mulberry leaves (and just a few hours later are noticeably bigger)the snails better watch out.

Thu Jan 15, 08:10:00 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Planning on making silk, then? It'll be interesting to hear what happens.

Thu Jan 15, 08:40:00 am  
Blogger Clare Dudman said...

You guessed!! Not sure I'll have enough to make a scarf, though:-)

Thu Jan 15, 08:43:00 am  
Blogger Maxine Clarke said...

Reminds me of being at primary school! The termly "who is going to look after the silkworms in the holidays" dilemma - as nobody was very good at identifying mulberries and hence whether they lived near a convenient tree.

I was somewhere on holiday - Spain? - and found a tiny village somewhere where the women make jewelry and other bits and pieces out of the empty cocoon shells, after the butterfly has hatched and the silk harvested.

Thu Jan 15, 01:29:00 pm  
Blogger Clare Dudman said...

Wow, you had silkworms at primary school, Maxine! I'm very impressed. I'd never seen any before. I'm very interested in the cocoon shells. I didn't know about those. However, I just did a bit of a search on goggle and found you can get the pupae in tins like beans, and the New Scientist was suggesting they'd make ideal food for astronauts a couple of years ago. So I am now toying with the idea of frying one to see if I can face eating one...

Thu Jan 15, 10:35:00 pm  
Blogger Kay Cooke said...

How cool!

Fri Jan 16, 10:18:00 pm  
Blogger Susanna said...

wow, that is far out!

Sat Jan 17, 12:07:00 am  
Blogger jem said...

What fun. I hope you don't upset the snail populace though - I thought you were their official spokesperson. They might feel compromised.

I think these little fellows are quite cute. Do they have faces? there is one near the top left of the photo that seems to be sporting eyes and a smile?

Tue Jan 20, 11:37:00 am  

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