On our farm, an old Swiss tradition and an exciting craft is being brought back to life.
Since 2009, mulberry trees have been cultivated on about 12 Swiss farms as a fodder base for the silkworms and the rearing of silkworms for the production of Swiss silk cocoons has been carried out.
We cultivate the mulberry trees as a permanent crop. The leaves are harvested by hand and prepared for feeding.
On our farm, we can carry out 2 rearing series of 20'000 caterpillars per year between the beginning of June and the end of September. The total of 40'000 caterpillars eat about 1.3 tons of leaves per season. From 40'000 caterpillars we obtain about 65 kg of cocoon, which corresponds to a quantity of about 7 kg of raw silk. From this, for example, about 130 m2 of silk fabric can be woven. In addition, we sell cocoons to a technology start-up from the medical technology sector, which produces various materials for medicine from the silk protein fibroin. A new addition to our range is the nourishing silk balm made from the silk protein sericin.
We keep the silkworms in a specially equipped and isolated rearing house. The development cycle of the silkworm is around 30 days. During this time, the caterpillars eat steadily more and increase their weight by a factor of 10,000. At the end of its development cycle, a caterpillar weighs about 5 grams and stops feeding. In specially prepared pupation frames, the caterpillars now spin themselves into a cocoon and pupate. This mystical process takes about 6-8 days. Now the cocoons can be harvested and dried.
Our aim is to produce high quality Swiss raw silk according to social, economic and ecological criteria. We sell the cocoons obtained on our farm to the swiss-silk silk factory in Bolligen for raw silk production. There, the silk thread is extracted and processed into raw silk and other silk products.
