Found these beauties in an aquarium at the pet store

[bekko]

silkworms



sorry, my camera sucks

-stevehops

[johnsmith]

Cool. Mulberry farms ( the internet company is the Silkworm shop) just down the road from Takimi's fish farm sells silkworms in all stages. They also make a silkworm powder. You can arrange for weekly or monthly delivery of bulk orders. You can even raise them yourself at some point. Not sure if you have delivery problems where you are ( live animals from the states?) JR

[kingkong]

We can grow the red mulberry tree in Florida but the preferable white mulberry doesn't grow as well.

[bekko]

We have a mulberry tree but I do not know which type. The worms seem to be eating it though. Someone must be growing them here. They are selling the worms for feeding Jackson Chameleons, a popular local pet.

You have to wonder about feeding silkworm pupae to koi. Obviously, the practice started to make use of a waste-product from silk production. It is awfully rich though. Is it really that good for them, good only in moderation, or just a cultural heritage from days before formulated pellets.

-s tevehopk

[kingkong]

I never really understood this silk worm thing. So...when cooked, silk worm pupae taste like shrimp or crab meat says Proffesor Yamashita. "People all over Japan ate them during food shortages after WWII."

I like to feed grasshoppers when handy, they are also high valued with protein levels 50 - 70%. I pull the 2 back legs and the heads prior to feeding.

[bekko]

They snip off the end and boil the cocoon to dissolve the sticky stuff that holds the threads together. The pupae is sort of squished out of the hole and is, more or less, a by-product. The cocoon has to be processed before the pupae begins to chew through the cocoon from the inside out as this breaks all the silk strands and ruins the quality. The threads are dipped from the boiling water to unwind the cocoon and the threads are then wound onto a mandrel or some sort. The longer the strands, the more valuable it is. Short strand stuff is processed as "combed" silk.

They say that you can only eat a few silkworm pupae because they are so rich. About 25% of the crude protein is in the exoskeleton chitin and is not digestible. Perhaps more importantly, the fat content is really high. There is de-fatted silkworm pupae meal used in some products. There is an abstract on line about using silkworm pupae meal to replace the fish meal in carp and poultry rations.

-steve hopk ins

[PapaBear]

As they aren't readily available in Oklahoma I don't feed them, but I've had a number of informative discussions on another forum with many who do in S.E. Asia.
The general consensus seems to be feed as a suppliment during warm weather in moderation along with other good quality feeds for rapid growth, energy, and shiroji enhancement.
It is so oily that the undigested oils create an "oily film" on the water if fed too heavily along with pot belly fatty growth issues. Having seen a few pictures of Koi fed too heavily on silkworm pupae I can attest to the pot belly problem.
Like most anything else that is good in monderation, excess can undo all the benefits. (2 glasses of merlot per day is good for me, two bottles may turn my liver to stone)

[gregbickal]

Ive got a bunch of things like that in my trees in the back. Is it worth catching and feeding to the koi? I need to get a positive ID on the type first I suppose.

[luke frisbee]

Pickal, the positive ID is that you DON'T have silkworms

[bekko]

Aside from the asp and other caterpillars with stinging hairs (cetae?), the only toxic caterpillars are those that eat toxic plants. If they don't sting you and you can eat the same leaves they do without puking, then they are probably OK. Something like tent caterpillars or web worms congregate in mass and would be easy to harvest.

-stevehopk