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Raising silkworms can be a fun project. If you're trying to get silk thread, the last step of the process, after they finish spinning their cocoon, is to bake them in the oven to kill them (if they hatch it'll ruin the thread).
Would one be allowed to bake them in a kosher oven? If one did so, would the oven remain kosher?
One can bake something not kasher without ruining the status of the oven if one does not let the the temperature of the baking reach "yad soledat bo" (the temperature in which one would recoil their hand immediately from touching something too hot). This temperature is not precisely defined since people have different tolerances for heat.
Rabbis have tried to make this temperature specific but nowadays most people try and give a temperature range. For various opinions on the suggested temperatures, you can see this article: http://www.dailyhalacha.com/m/halacha.aspx?id=724
So as long as you are able to kill/bake the silkworm without reaching the temperature of yad soledat bo then your oven will retain it's kasher status.
Not sure if it should be done, but it certainly wouldn’t make it nonkosher as it is nosein ta’am lifgam
