Silkworms only eat mulberry leaves and/or artificial silkworm diet (Silkworm Chow). If you are going to feed the newly hatched silkworms mulberry leaves instead of Silkworm Chow be sure and only feed them the new growth (tiny 1/2 to 1 inch leaves) or they will not be able to eat them because their jaws are too weak.

mulberry leaves
Silkworms are oligophagous insects, and mulberry leaves are their best food source. All nutrients and water silkworms need come from mulberry leaves, which is a result of the long-term co-evolution and natural selection between silkworms and mulberry trees7, 8.

Silkworms have very specific food requirements and will only eat fresh mulberry leaves or our food. Powdered mulberry food is a “just add water” mix that can be cooked up in 5 minutes using a microwave. You will need 1-2 lbs of powdered food per 1000 small silkworms to grow them to cocoon.

Silkworms eat only mulberry leaves. The entire process can be controlled by keeping the worms in a controlled environment; protecting them from ants, mice, and disease; and feeding them mulberry leaves.

mulberry tree
Silkworms are picky eaters: They like only one type of food: leaves from the white mulberry tree. Humans engaged in sericulture — the keeping of silkworms for the purpose of harvesting silk from the insects’ cocoons — feed silkworms their preference for the highest-quality silk.

Carrots are not an ideal food for silkworms but it can be a good alternative to offer if you are all out of mulberry leaves or silkworm chow. You can grate fresh, unpeeled carrots into small pieces before offering them to your silkworms. You might note a color change in your silkworms. Some of them might turn orange.

Silkworm cocoons are normally yellow or white so we used to feed them beetroot leaves to get a pink colour of silk and spinach to get a pale green silk.

Silkworms eat mulberry leaves, and are native to northern China. The domesticated B. mori and the wild Bombyx mandarina can still breed and sometimes produce hybrids.

Silkworm Feeding Silkworms have huge appetites, and their appetite gets bigger as they grow. They will not eat wet, bruised or wilted leaves. They can survive on lettuce or beetroot leaves, but a diet of this alone will mean that they don’t produce a good quality silk.

When you’re looking for pet silkworms, check out silkworm egg suppliers like Mulberry Farms. By ordering from a reputable supplier, you can be sure that your eggs will hatch and someone will be just a phone call away if you have a silkworm catastrophe.

While silk worms can be found on silk farms all around the world, you can also raise them on your own right at home. Silk worm eggs may be purchased from a number of online stores or directly from farms or growers.

Kill true silkworms by feeding them a non-mulberry species. Tear a small hole in the webbing and insert leaves from another tree or vegetable leaves like lettuce. When the worms eat the leaves, they will die.

The total life-cycle of a Silkworm ranges from 6-8 weeks. Generally, the warmer the weather, the quicker the Silkworm will complete its life-cycle, however, other factors such as humidity and exposure to sunlight are also very important.

Silkworm moth, ( Bombyx mori ), lepidopteran whose caterpillar has been used in silk production ( sericulture) for thousands of years. Although native to China , the silkworm has been introduced throughout the world and has undergone complete domestication, with the species no longer being found in the wild.