WP

Concept:
Silk Worms would be a zero slot pet (sorta pet) that one acquired would produce cloth for its owner based on the way it was cared for. If it was neglected it would not make any cloth. If it was fed on a regular interval and frequency it would produce cloth. (Optionally perhaps you could teach your silkworm to make special closth but that is something to consider down the road perhaps.)

Zero Slot: As with plants you may want to have several of these housed in your bank or home so it would be necessary for them to be a zero slot item.

Cages: Craftable Silkworm cages would be used to hold your silkworms (like a flower pot) and would be a container that you could open to remove the cloth that had been produced by your silkworm.

Obtaining:
It should not be a simple thing to obtain a silk worm. They should either go along the lines of a bio pet creation where you might need DNA from a fan dancer, actual silk worm, etc.

or if a tameable make it difficult to locate and/or tame ... maybe as a random reward of the crafting bods.

If nothing else it would be a good source for producing bandages and a neat novelty!

Without commenting on your specific ideas, I'd like to say that I also would like to have a method available for producing my own cloth. I realize that it isn't long before a player's gold earning potential renders the cost of NPC cloth bolts almost negligible, but it's something that I enjoy doing so cost and effort really aren't considerations. For most of my UO career, I kept sheep farms but I figured that this line from the Rules section: "Please do not mass release pets. They do not decay and create lag..." meant that's a no-go. So I looked to planting flax or cotton but those aren't currently options either. I'd be in full support of any method the staff found suitable for allowing players to manufacture cloth.

Ghost/Falkor, If my coral is a problem let me know and I will shrink/kill or otherwise dispose of the critters I have there.. I'd missed the caveat about mass release of pets. I may be in violation which I will fix promptly if you feel I am.

I really like this idea.

Please allow me to contribute my 2 cents.

One of the by-products of the silkworms could be spools of special thread.
These spools could be used to alter the colour of already obtained cloth items.
The spools could come in a number of really unique colours (think the tailor bod reward colours for the common spools, and the higher/rarer spools could be the see-through cloth like the halloween costume).

Let me explain. You may have a shroud of the higher-archs, or a robe of the high priest. you could use a set number of these spools to imbue the item with the spools unique colour, maintaining the stats of the item, however dyeing it a colour normally unavailable without crafting the item from scratch.

I for one would love my high priest robe to be clear like the halloween costume.

Just a thought.