Chapter 467 Silkworm Moth

It starts eating from birth, then goes through great pains to form a cocoon and then emerges as a butterfly.

Other butterflies will be reborn after breaking out of their cocoons, but only silk moths will use up their entire lives just to continue after breaking out of their cocoons.

No wonder it was written into poems by the ancients.

A few days later, the two of them opened the bamboo net. There were still quite a few surviving silkworms inside, but most of them were female silkworms. There were also some male silkworms that were still alive and had already spread their wings.

The female silkworm moth has smaller wing feathers and is unable to fly. It looks cute from the front with its furry off-white color. The male silkworm moth has larger wing feathers, and the back of the wings are slightly creamy yellow.

In the past, Zhao Yeqing saw someone online buying fried female silkworm moths that had not laid eggs. Their stomachs were full of silkworm eggs, and when you bit them, they made a crackling sound like firecrackers.

The silkworm eggs still in the belly of the silk moth and the silkworm eggs that have just been laid are light yellow, not the black color that they will become after a while. They do not look disgusting or scary, otherwise it would be difficult to eat a belly full of black seeds.

To eat silkworm moths, you first cut off the wings on both sides, leaving only the plump body in the middle, which can then be fried.

It is said to be very fragrant, but Zhao Yeqing does not want to try it. If he wants to eat insects, there are bamboo worms and bee pupae to choose from. Maybe he can't accept it in his heart and doesn't think that these cute furry little things can be food.

There are also people who use the 'essence' of newly hatched silkworm pupae to make wine. This has been exaggeratedly advertised, and many people were deceived before the ground cracked. In fact, that thing is just the excrement of the silkworms that have been held in the pupae and cocoons for more than ten days.

The silkworm moths were collected and placed on another side. After being dried, their entire bodies could be used as medicine. This thing was useless to Zhao Yeqing, but Mu Xi said it could benefit the kidneys.

The silkworm eggs are collected and placed on the silkworm seat in the winnowing basket, waiting to hatch.

Not all silkworm eggs can hatch. Some female silkworm moths that have not mated will also lay eggs, just like chickens laying eggs, but they cannot hatch.

The temperature in the basement is about 23 degrees. The two kept the basement door open 24 hours a day. If the door was closed, the temperature would only be around 19 degrees, which is too low for hatching silkworm eggs.

Last year, there were about two to three hundred silkworms. A female silk moth lays between four hundred and five hundred eggs. Excluding female silk moths that have not mated and some male silk moths, Zhao Yeqing estimated that this year, at least tens of thousands of silkworms would be hatched.

The demand for mulberry leaves is a big project.

Zhao Yeqing thought about it and decided to wait until the silkworm eggs turned black and purple before putting most of them in sealed bags and putting them in the refrigerator.

When I was a child, the silkworm eggs I raised for the first time were taken out of the refrigerator by my teacher. It is said that they can be kept in the refrigerator for about half a year, but it is not good if kept for more than half a year because it will reduce the hatching rate.

After controlling the number, the mulberry leaves at home should be enough for the silkworms to eat.

Based on their experience from last year's planting experiment, the two calculated the food intake using their notes. According to the calculation that a silkworm needs to eat nearly one kilogram of mulberry leaves in its lifetime, the mulberry leaves at home cannot feed the remaining half of the silkworms.

If it's not enough to eat, then it's not enough. If you really can't afford it, just raise less. Two people don't need so much anyway. Even if you take a step back, it's not certain whether you can do it.

This is how Zhao Yeqing comforted himself. Mu Xi curled his lips but said nothing. He silently put the plan of returning to the village to transplant mulberry trees on the agenda.

Some people appear to be calm and composed on the surface, but deep down they can't change their nature of wanting to do everything well.

The older generation likes to jokingly call this a life of hard work, but Mu Xi feels that it is enough for him to passively possess this life.

He didn't intend to persuade her, thinking that there was nothing wrong with it. Life in the mountains was boring and there was nothing new day after day. It didn't matter whether she was rich or poor, as long as she was interested, she could just do it.

Even if it is tiring to do something you are interested in, it is still fun.

The eggs should be stored in the refrigerator and should not be placed directly on the refrigerator air outlet, otherwise they will be easily frozen.

This silkworm farmer did not leave any notes. After searching the entire house, only a few books related to silkworm farming were found. The pages were yellowed, old, and some were even eaten by insects. Even the fonts on the books were in early traditional Chinese.

Turning to the last page of the book, I saw the publication date, which was almost close to the founding of the People's Republic of China.

There was a book that was read vertically, and it was in traditional Chinese characters and the pages were yellowed, so Zhao Yeqing had difficulty understanding it. He finally found some knowledge points in it and hurriedly copied them down in a notebook to avoid having to read them again next time he needed them.

The first batch of silkworm moths that laid eggs have gradually died, and those who are lucky can even see their eggs hatching.

The silkworm seats were densely packed with tiny black bugs, which looked like ordinary caterpillar larvae. Hundreds or even thousands of them hatched at the same time, wriggling on the silkworm seats and eating mulberry leaves, which made Zhao Yeqing's scalp tingle.

The silkworms during this period are first-year silkworms and grow very fast. In just a few days, they can shed their black appearance and become plump white silkworm babies.

The two of them had made two types of silkworm seats before, one was a hollow long strip, and the other was a winnowing basket placed on a rack with fresh mulberry leaves in the basket.

Last time, there were not many silkworms, so they used winnowing basket silkworm seats to raise them. Now, the number of silkworms is more than ten times that of before, so the two of them moved the silkworms that have shed their skin and become second-instar silkworms to different silkworm seats.

The silkworms have grown bigger. Compared with last year, the mulberry tree planted outside the yard has also grown a lot. The new branches are emerald green, like a child who has not had a full meal for a long time and is gradually growing stronger with careful feeding.

Zhao Yeqing tried according to the mulberry branch residues he saw on the ground in the house of the silkworm farmer before. He also cut the tender branches of the mulberry tree and placed them on the silkworm seats. The silkworms, which had grown into second-instar silkworms, were very energetic and their bodies were long enough.

It climbed up the mulberry branch easily and ate the mulberry leaves.

The mulberry leaves placed on the silkworm seats on the other side are still the same as before, which are freshly picked leaves. This serves as the control group, and the idea is to compare the two types of mulberry leaves to see which feeding method is better.

Watching silkworms eat is a very relaxing thing. Zhao Yeqing sometimes catches a silkworm and puts it in a small box with fresh mulberry leaves. He then takes it outside, sits in the yard with the box next to him, and watches it eat while rocking in a rocking chair.

Here comes the joy of feeding addiction.