Rearing of Silkworms

The second component, rearing, happens in a purpose-built rearing house — typically about 6m x 4m x 3.5m, raised on an elevated shaded site with a metre of clearance around it — sized to accommodate roughly 100 disease-free layings (dfls). Its windows and ventilators allow air to circulate freely but are screened with nylon net specifically to keep out uzi flies and other pests, and the house is equipped with a hygrometer, power sprayers, rearing stands, foam pads, wax-coated paraffin papers, nylon nets, leaf baskets, gunny bags, rotary or bamboo mountages and a drier. The rearing sequence itself runs through disinfecting the rearing house, incubating the eggs, brushing (transferring hatched larvae onto trays), rearing the young larvae and then the late-age larvae. In practice, healthy moths are allowed to mate for about 4 hours; the female is then kept in a dark plastic bed where she lays roughly 400 eggs within 24 hours, after which she is removed, crushed and examined for disease so that only certified disease-free eggs go forward for industrial rearing. Eggs are incubated artificially, hatch within 7–10 days, and the resulting larvae are kept on trays at 20–25°C, fed first on chopped mulberry leaves and then, after 4– …