1,875 Cocoons
That is a very large number of cocoons for a modern person to raise in a location not originally meant for raising silk worms. 1,875 cocoons raised in 2026
2025: 300 cocoons raised. My trees were greatly diminished from the year prior, 2025 was the Mulberry recovery year.
2024: 1,625 cocoons raised. The first year had make it or break it learning curves, from losing half the worms in a heat wave to running short on Mulberry leaves because the bushhog guy mowed fields.
This year was the easiest, most effective and impactful season of worms. I would like to discuss what preplanned ideas made 2026 successful and enjoyable.
On our farm, we grew up a very large, and fully shaded, easily accessible area of Mulberry trees. When we purchased our farm, the driveway has a 1980’s grove of white pines overgrown with honeysuckle. The son of the family who lived here before us did some gravel work a few years back on the farm. He says that he spent a summer grounded for wrecking his dad’s truck. His dad, buried on the farm by the firepit, brought home several buckets of sapling trees for him to plant that summer as part of his punishment for killing a tree and truck that spring. For us to once again clear the driveway, it was two years and nearly 10k in contractor work to visually open up the quarter mile long driveway of the honeysuckle, worth it. The driveway is my dream morning walking path. It was by choice to allow the Mulberry to take over the driveway. The birds planted the hundreds of bush-like Mulberry lining the quarter mile paved stretch. Feeding worms is part morning walk, part collecting. I tend to any honeysuckle or wild things with my nippers while also shaping my tree grove. I think my neighbors have no understanding of what transpires next door, yet they have some resentment at the fact that their cars always seem to be in need of a wash.
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Worms are like babies. Feed them, change them, nap, and repeat. Anyone who has had a baby will tell you that the tiny button up footsie outfits are the worst, zippers are top tier. My housing system for the worms has been economized from buttons to zippers. The cages stack along a wall, and have trays where the poop falls down and away from the worms. The cages are all wire, so they breath. My worm room is temperature controlled with humidity checks. I did not buy any of these advancements, I was resourceful with my household surroundings. A cardboard box and a wire shelf piece from the basement or garage is a great starting point for a newcomer. Don’t buy into a hobby, raise a hobby from the ground for a more fulfilling experience. People who spend gobs of money up front rarely find the true joy that carries them.
I had company. I wonder if my boys will remember this experience as adults. I know I will hold this memory for years to come. My youngest was in trouble big time during the last week of worm feeding frenzy this season. His attitude was not aligned with our family, hours of conversation with him ensued. I had to parent through the whole thing while feeding the worms. Him and I stood in that worm room for hours and hours each day discussing the philosophies of being a good person while slowly stripping the leaves off branches, a leaf for a worm each. It was surreal, like theorizing under a tree by a pond about the purpose of the universe with my 11 year old. I realized it was nice to have company in my long, lonely hours of feeding, even if the opinion and dreams of my company was to run away from home to join the circus.
In rural Asia up until the incoming of industry, raising worms each spring made for a good side hustle for families. A Silk Worker’s Notebook by Cheryl Kolander describes the financials of these farming people. If the women and children of the house raised a good batch of worms, they could financially replace months of harder labor done by those in the household, even earning the entire household months of vacation. What strikes me about this, the household community of women did the worm raising together. Much like myself, the households had rooms and gear dedicated to the spring season of raising worms. Much of the artwork that I have come across shows many women gathered together in the worm rooms. How enjoyable it must be to sit with sisters and mothers for hours, chatting away, while doing the adorable job of feeding worms.
Worm veterinary services are a thing. The worms are too dry, they are too wet. That tray of worms is not shedding properly, why. Those worms are all crawling to an edge of the tray to huddling. These worms look weird in coloring. This tray of worms is eating so much! But the tray next is eating nothing? With any animal husbandry, a good farmer looks at their animals. like, really eyeballs them over every day or several times a day in evaluation for chances in improvements. That sort of eye takes years of training to enhance the skill of catching the health issues. I find myself catching more and more health issues with my worms, even solving their issues in some cases.
Feed your worms like you’re entering a market animal competition. 4H has an exciting contest that you may be socially aware; the kids buy an animal in spring, have it weighed at the fair grounds. The contestants then feed and exercise the pants off those animals until fair week. The animals undergo a judges scrutiny, winners are selected, and then animals go to market auction for legit amounts of charitably money. Many kids pay for college this way, I’ve seen cattle kids pay for Purdue engineering full rides with 4h market money. Animal husbandry turned into a productive game. I think of feeding worms like this, the better they eat, the better they will cocoon, make a game of it
I think more than anything, I was emotionally and physically ready for the challenge. I embraced the month of feeding with energy. When not feeding, I was reading and writing about silk. I lived in the moment of raising worms.