Silkworms grow so much during their
short lifetimes that they have to pop out of their skins four times
before even considering turning into moths. You can tell your
caterpillars are about to molt when they stop eating for about a day
and sit with their heads in the air. That’s your warning that by
tomorrow you’ll need a lot more leaves.
The silkworms pictured
above have just molted for the second time. At eight days old,
they seem to be eating twice as quickly as they were just two days
earlier (pictured below), when the insects were mere second-instar
(instead of third-instar) caterpillars.
The table below sums up
what’s to come in the days ahead:
| Intar 1 | Instar 2 | Instar 3 | Instar 4 | Instar 5 | |
| Age | 0-3.5 days | 3.5-7 days | 7-11.5 days | 11.5-17.5 days | 17.5-25.5 days |
| Appearance | black and hairy | grayish-white with black head | grayish-white with black head | all white | |
| Maximum size | 0.25 inches | 0.5 inches | 1 inch | 1.5 inches | 2.75 inches |
If I think my 8-day-old
silkworms are hungry, what am I going to do with caterpillars five
times as big? Easy — I will have given
at least some of our miniature herd to the chickens by then, so
there won’t be as many mouths to feed.
