Replies to post #239468 on Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

[DimesForShares]

Want2retire: “15% of the largest production run ever is a large percentage? Based on what?”

Based on the fact that female silkworms lay about 300 eggs. Each breeding pair produces 300 eggs so we can credit each silkworm with 150 eggs as a way to simplify the calculations. If you have a million silkworms and use all of them for breeding, you can expect 150 million eggs.

Suppose we want to raise 5 million eggs per generation for production. (Close to a metric ton.) We need 33,333 silkworms to produce those eggs. Thus we will need to hatch 5,033,333 eggs. From that, 33,333 will be set aside for egg production while 5 million will go for silk. Compute 33,333/5,033,333 is 0.66%. I rounded it up to 1% to account for losses.

15% is a much larger fraction of the population than 1%. 15 times larger. Hope that clarifies things.

Imagine they started with a million eggs and set aside 15% for breeding. Those 150,000 silkworms would be expected to produce 22.5 million eggs. Those would sustain a production level of 3.7 metric tons per generation.

Obviously Prodigy is not going to jump from a million silkworms per generation (about 20% of a metric ton) to 3.7 metric tons per generation in a single generation. Why set aside such a significant fraction for breeding?

The answer is probably low productivity.

Want2retire: “You are saying the production numbers are small and then arguing 15% is a big percentage to set aside? If the production numbers were so small wouldn’t they be needing to set aside far more than 15% for breeding?” lol”

Because the expansion factor is so large, even setting aside 5% would seem more than adequate assuming Prodigy had at least a million eggs to start with. Hope this clarifies the analysis for you.

Again, this analysis is robust over differences in egg production for a wide range. The simplest explanation is that most of the silkworms do not meet specs. If 80% to 90% of the silkworms are not good enough, that is when you set aside 15%.

Other possible explanations? Happy to hear from the source.