Uk free silkworms

[Suzle87]

Anyone in the uk want me to send them some silkworms? I’ve got an over population issue as Ventress has decided he doesn’t like them.
Let me know if there is anyone interested, I’d just request postage cost.
They are second generation silkworms born and bred in my house lol

[hagarthefish]

Wow that would be fantastic, i'll pm you now :0)

[kingofnobbys]

If you can't get rid of the excess silkworms , they can be blanched and frozen.

Procedure :

So if you want to have silkworms all year round (that are the right size to use immediately but when there are no mulberry leaves available , and especially for when you have a sick beardie, this is the recipy.

you need:
>>>> 1 wide pot
>>>> metal sieve
>>>> lots of ice cubes
>>>> plastic bowl
>>>> paper towel
>>>> baking paper
and biscuit trays.

If you have several hundred (or thousand) of whatever sized ,mixed silkworms feed them up with lots of fresh (red or white or black) mulberry leaves for a day (or prepared chow) to get their nutritional content up.

Fill your pot with water hot water from the hot water tap and bring it to a good rolling boil.
Put on your earmuffs and put a handful of silkworms in the sieve and hold the sieve in the boiling water for about 5-10 seconds (the earmuffs are so you can close your ears so you won't hear them screaming ).
Then move the blanched worms in the sieve and tip the blanched worms into a bowl of water with prechilled icewater mixed with ice cubes(This stops them from continuing to cook).
Repeat until you have enough to fill a tray.
Scoop the silkworms out of the ice water and lay them on paper towel and pat them carefully with another piece of paper towel.
Cover the biscuit tray with baking paper and put the silkworms on so they are not touching each other.
Put the tray in the freezer for half an hour and then take the silkworms off and put into another container or sealed freezer bags to be stored in the freezer for when you want them.

The idea of not letting them touch each other on the tray to freeze is so that when they are in your storage container / bags they wont all stick together so you can take out and thaw as many as you need.

To thaw put them in a chinese container and put hot water from the tap on them and let them sit for awhile.
Just make sure they arent cold or still partially frozen when you feed them out.

If you dont blanche them in the boiling water before freezing them, they go all mushy and green and unedible

[Suzle87]

Haha I don’t think I could handle the screaming, I can’t kill them (Hense leaving Ventress to do it) with watching them be laid as eggs and then born etc I’m oddly attached haha so yeh sending 150 or so in the post tomorrow then hopefully they will come in useful. Thanks for the idea though, it’s costing me a small fortune in mulberry chow the amount that they are getting through lol.

[kingofnobbys]

Haha I don’t think I could handle the screaming, I can’t kill them (Hense leaving Ventress to do it) with watching them be laid as eggs and then born etc I’m oddly attached haha so yeh sending 150 or so in the post tomorrow then hopefully they will come in useful. Thanks for the idea though, it’s costing me a small fortune in mulberry chow the amount that they are getting through lol.

Summer in the UK, if the place is anything like Australia's suburbia , there are mulberry trees (hicks blacks) everywhere …. ask about and you'll likely find some trees in backyards, parks, on farms all over the place , even growing wild in the woods.
I wish we had a similar site as this https://mulberrytrees.co.uk/locations/ in Australia.
You'll find mulberry trees in Gosforth Place, Hoole, Chester.

I don't buy chow very often, I just buy my fresh mulberry leaves from a chap in Sydney who sells them on Gumtree (he knows of a grove of mulberry trees in a public park somewhere in Penrith) , 200 leaves costs me about $30 including express post (overnight) and I'm good for leaves for up to 2 months. Last lot got were at the end May and I'm still using them .

White mulberry are the best leaves, but red and black mulberry are fine and the moths still form nice cocoons irrespective.

Check the local Maul noticeboards , classifieds (in the news papers) , Gumtree, Ebay (UK) and I'm sure you'll find people who have fresh mulberry leaves for sale dirt cheap, the postage will cost more than the leaves (that's what I find).

The fresh leaves can be blanched and frozen too so if you get a huge bulk order of maybe 400 leaves , I'd blanch and freeze half , and it's just a matter of taking a bag of leaves from the freezer , lifting 5 or 6 leaves and replacing the bag into the freezer before they all thaw out.
My blanched and frozen leaves from 2016 got me though my patch of fresh leaflessness in July and August last winter , I only had to make up chow in for last of August and some of September.
(Australian winter and spring).

[Suzle87]

That’s handy to know thankyou, my dads a bit more green fingered than I am so I’ve asked him to find some for me haha