How to Hatch Silkworm Eggs

How to Hatch Silkworm Eggs

Silkworm eggs hatch on your schedule, not their own. Held at 50–60°F they stay dormant; brought up to room temperature they begin developing and hatch within roughly a week to ten days. That controllability is the whole reason keepers buy eggs rather than worms.

Holding Eggs Before You Want Them

Keep them at a steady 50–60°F. Steady matters more than exact — eggs warmed and cooled repeatedly hatch unevenly, which gives you a cup of mixed sizes instead of a usable batch.

Note the distinction that trips people up: eggs tolerate cool storage. Live silkworms do not. Refrigerating worms is the most common way to kill a whole cup, and the fact that eggs are stored cool is where that mistake usually starts.

Starting Them Off

Move the eggs to normal room temperature. Warmth is the trigger; nothing else is required, and no water should be added — hatchlings drown in a film of surface moisture.

Have This Ready Before They Hatch

Hatchlings are two to three millimetres long and need food immediately. Waiting until you see them to prepare is leaving it too late.

• Food — finely chopped tender mulberry leaf, or properly hydrated chow. First-instar worms cannot manage coarse leaf.
• Warmth — young instars do best warm, around 80°F, with humidity high but no standing water.
• A dry container — wipe out condensation. Wet is fatal at this size.

What Happens Next

From hatching, a silkworm runs a fairly strict 28-day schedule to cocoon, through five moults. Knowing where a batch sits in that cycle is what lets you plan feedings rather than react to them.

More in the complete silkworm raising and care guide.