Silk - The queen of textile fibres - Ⅱ

摘要

This completes the cycle of its life. Now taking up individual stages of its development we will have a complete view. 1. The female moth lays around 400-500 eggs of very small sizes at the start of the cycle. 2 & 3 The eggs of about 100 Moths are collected in one enclosure which will be around 40/50 thousand eggs. After about two weeks above ideal temperatures of around 20-22℃ they hatch and the small caterpillars of about 2-3 mm length and 0.5mgs in weight are born. They are fed tender mulberry leaves which are cut into very small pieces for easy feeding to the caterpillars. They have a voracioos appelite and feed and grow fast. After about 30-35 days they weigh around 4 gms and are about 10 cms in length. Thus we can see that they increase their length, weight and size during this feeding season. During this stages the larvae change their skins every 5/6 days akin to a molting process of reptiles. The silk worms require an enormous quantity of food as it grows and adds on weight. It is guessed or assessed that for 50,000 silk worms to be fed it requires about 1.5 tons of mulberry leaves requiring a plantation of about 1200 square metres. This will give a production of 100 cocoons of an average weight of 5 gms i.e. a production of 500 gms which after wastages in reeling may give about 400-450 gms of silk yarn. The eggs in the form of worms are known as larvae. 4. After the larvae reach maturity they are transferred separately for enabling it to start spinning the cocoon. This is done by persons with lot of experience and expertise in sericulture field.