This is what I talk to AI about.
Creating a natural spider silk farm is an incredibly challenging endeavor, but I'll explain the realities and why it's impractical at commercial scale:
## The Fundamental Problem
**Spiders are cannibalistic and territorial.** Unlike silkworms that can be raised peacefully together, spiders will eat each other when kept in close proximity. This makes traditional farming impossible.
## Historical Attempts
The most famous natural spider silk project was in Madagascar (2009), where a team of 80 people worked with **over one million Golden Orb spiders** over 4+ years to create an 11×4 foot textile. This required:
- Individual housing for each spider
- Daily feeding (each spider needs live insects)
- Careful silk extraction every few days
## What It Would Take for a Shirt
For a single shirt, you'd need approximately:
- **50,000-100,000 spiders** (depending on silk yield)
- Individual enclosures for each spider
- Daily capture/raising of millions of insects for food
- A full-time team to manage the operation
- 1-2 years of continuous silk collection
## Practical Challenges
**Space Requirements:** Each spider needs its own container/web space - think thousands of individual terrariums
**Feeding:** Spiders need live prey. You'd essentially need an insect farm to feed your spider farm
**Silk Collection:** Must be done gently by hand, extracting silk strands without killing the spider
**Yield:** Each spider produces tiny amounts - maybe 30-100 feet of silk every few days
**Seasonality:** Many spiders have seasonal cycles affecting silk production
## Why It's Not Viable
The time, space, and labor costs would make a shirt cost tens of thousands of dollars, even doing it yourself. The Madagascar project's cloth was valued at over $500,000 despite using essentially free labor.
## Alternative Approach
If you're interested in spider silk production, consider:
- **Silkworm breeding** with genetically modified silkworms (like Kraig Biocraft's approach)
- **Small-scale research** with a few spiders for educational purposes
- **Supporting biotech companies** developing synthetic spider silk
The dream of natural spider silk farming remains fascinating but commercially impossible due to the spiders' biological nature.
OceanSlim
npub1zm…v7f60
2025-05-15 22:37:33
Author Public Key
npub1zmc6qyqdfnllhnzzxr5wpepfpnzcf8q6m3jdveflmgruqvd3qa9sjv7f60Published at
2025-05-15 22:37:33Event JSON
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"content": "This is what I talk to AI about. \n\nCreating a natural spider silk farm is an incredibly challenging endeavor, but I'll explain the realities and why it's impractical at commercial scale:\n\n## The Fundamental Problem\n\n**Spiders are cannibalistic and territorial.** Unlike silkworms that can be raised peacefully together, spiders will eat each other when kept in close proximity. This makes traditional farming impossible.\n\n## Historical Attempts\n\nThe most famous natural spider silk project was in Madagascar (2009), where a team of 80 people worked with **over one million Golden Orb spiders** over 4+ years to create an 11×4 foot textile. This required:\n- Individual housing for each spider\n- Daily feeding (each spider needs live insects)\n- Careful silk extraction every few days\n\n## What It Would Take for a Shirt\n\nFor a single shirt, you'd need approximately:\n- **50,000-100,000 spiders** (depending on silk yield)\n- Individual enclosures for each spider\n- Daily capture/raising of millions of insects for food\n- A full-time team to manage the operation\n- 1-2 years of continuous silk collection\n\n## Practical Challenges\n\n**Space Requirements:** Each spider needs its own container/web space - think thousands of individual terrariums\n\n**Feeding:** Spiders need live prey. You'd essentially need an insect farm to feed your spider farm\n\n**Silk Collection:** Must be done gently by hand, extracting silk strands without killing the spider\n\n**Yield:** Each spider produces tiny amounts - maybe 30-100 feet of silk every few days\n\n**Seasonality:** Many spiders have seasonal cycles affecting silk production\n\n## Why It's Not Viable\n\nThe time, space, and labor costs would make a shirt cost tens of thousands of dollars, even doing it yourself. The Madagascar project's cloth was valued at over $500,000 despite using essentially free labor.\n\n## Alternative Approach\n\nIf you're interested in spider silk production, consider:\n- **Silkworm breeding** with genetically modified silkworms (like Kraig Biocraft's approach)\n- **Small-scale research** with a few spiders for educational purposes\n- **Supporting biotech companies** developing synthetic spider silk\n\nThe dream of natural spider silk farming remains fascinating but commercially impossible due to the spiders' biological nature.",
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