Before I start, everyone of us have come in contact with Silk fabric before either directly or indirectly. but the truth is behind every silk material you use atleast thousands of silkworms are killed.
Silk production has existed for many centuries,and history has it that the Chinese people where the first to discover the secret of silk production.but today silk is produced in area outside of China,such as India, Brazil, Iran etc.
Today I decided to write about how million of silkworms are killed just to get a silk fabric.
What are silk worms?
The silkworm (Bomb mori) is the larva or caterpillar of the Bombyx mori moth. The moth is important because it makes the silks.
QUICK FACT ABOUT SILKWORMS
An adult silkworm has a wingspan of 40 to 50 mm (about 2 inches) and has a thick bristly body (the adult female is larger than the adult male). It typically is blond to light brown in colour, with thin dark bands running across the body. The wings are cream-coloured and have dark veins extending out to the margins. Mouthparts in adults are reduced or absent, so in their brief adulthood of two or three days, they do not eat.
( Extracted from britannia.com)
Ancient picture of silk production
China was the first country to discover the secret of silk production, and they kept it secret from the outer world. It was believed that the secret of silk production was stolen by some monk and was taking to other part of the world like India, Persia etc.
How silk is produced?
Silk is produced by several insects; but, generally, only the silk of moth caterpillars(bomb Mori) has been used for textile manufacturing.
The process of producing silks which is called sericulture involves gathering of the silkworm larve and harvesting the Cacoon to collect the silk material.
A female silkmoths lay approximately close to 600eggs on a mulberry tree,after 10days the eggs are hatched into larva which are know as silkworms,then the silk worms feeds on the mulberry tree to increase in size,as the silkworm grows bigger it needs to undergo molting(shedding of it outermost body) so it can grow bigger.
After the SILKWORMS may have gone through the fourth stage of molting,it is ready to transform into a Moth.
The silkworm like every other worms climbs to the top of the tree and start spinning a Silk fibre to cover it selve,these silk fibre is made up of fibroin protein and sericin which are secreted from it two salivary glands.
When the woven silk comes in contact with air it becomes a hard material.the silk worm encloses it self within the Cacoon. It takes close to 2 to 3 days for a silkworm to make a complete Cacoon.
Stage 2( human cultivation)
After the silkworm might have enclose itself with the Cacoon,the Cacoon is harvested with the silkworm inside by silk farmers.
The Cacoon is then boiled to kill the silkworm and also to remove the gum like material present on the Cacoon. Then the Cacoon is brushed to locate the outer end of the filament. The filament (tsilk fibre ) are put on a spinning reel.
The silk produce by these process is know to be raw silk,then these silks can be taking to production plant to be dyed and also converted into silk materials,like silk scarfs etc.
Image of Amazing fact about Silk below
It is know that Approximately close to 2500silkworms are killed to produce just a pound of silk material. Well silk production is one of ways human are endangering life of other species.
So when ever you plan to purchase a silk material, always remember how it was produced.
You can always leave your comments below.
Thank you
Interesting read.