silk moths over cocoons?

[mahoraz]

my question is this.... to get a silk "farm" going should i let the first batch of cocoons hatch and hope there wuold be atleast 1 pair of different gender silkmoths
or should i unravel them into silk and hope to catch more outside? i currently have 4 worms eating leaves(lost 6 cause of mulberry leaf absense >.<)
considering its fully random between F and M
p(0,4)=0,5^4=0,0625
p(1,4)=(4!/3!)*0,5*0,5^3=0,25
p(2,4)=(4!/2!*2!)*0,5^2*0,5^2=0,375
p(3,4)=(4!/3!)*0,5^3*0,5=0,25
p(4,4)=0,5^4=0,0625
so that leaves us with a 12,5% chance that all 4 are the same gender, a 50% chance that atleast 1 of the is different gender
and 37,5% that theres an equal amount of both genders
all things considered theres a good chance of next generation eggs.... should i do it?

[Granger]

To have a successfull silkfarm you should hatch the first batch of cocoons to get new moths, having to catch them again is unrelieable and you'll only get q10 moths. Sort them into containers, a pair can produce up to 10 eggs so leave enough space in the container), it is perfectly ok to put up to 6 pairs into a cupboard without risking an overflow (since average number of eggs is 8 as far as i saw last world).

On next iteration unravel the lower-q cocoons and hatch the higher qualities.
It's a good idea to at least hatch 16 cocoons to have a fair chance to get enough pairs, on my farm (ran with 12 herbalist tables) i usually hatched the top 3 Tables (48) worth of the cocoons (to get new moths and eggs) while unraveling the rest to get silk.

[mahoraz]

thanks for the info man, their still eating the leaves at the moment, but im hoping to get atleast 1 pair then
(i lost 6 worms because there are no mulberry trees anywhere close to me... had to travel like 30-40 squares to get leaves)

[Grog]

best way is to make sure you have enough leafs stored before the worms are done

[mahoraz]

dammit... in the end i ended up on the worst case scenario - they all turned to F silkmoths and im out of options (didnt find a male fast enough eighter)>.<

[Zamte]

Generally when I do it, I go a step further. I hatch all of them for a couple of cycles, both to work up to the larger numbers I want to do at once, as well as to put aside a stock for later in case I lose some so that I don't have to start over entirely.