Have you ever stopped to admire the natural beauty of a butterfly as it spreads its colorful wings and soars through the open air? If you’d like to have a closer relationship with butterflies and with nature, why not consider raising your own butterflies? To raise your own butterflies, you’re going to need to start with the butterfly’s less eye catching precursor, the caterpillar. Here’s how to raise butterflies at home:
Select appropriate housing for your caterpillars.
A small aquarium makes ideal housing for nurturing your caterpillars. You can purchase from your local pet supply store. You’ll need a screen to fasten to the top to allow good ventilation with allowing your caterpillars to escape. Line the bottom of your container with a layer of grass and add several sticks for your caterpillars to pupate on.
Collect your caterpillars.
If you start raising butterflies during caterpillar season which extends from later spring to early summer, you may be able to collect your own caterpillars. If not, you can purchase caterpillars from a variety of companies located online that cater to people who raise butterflies.
Feeding your caterpillars
This can be tricky since each caterpillar species eats only a narrow group of host plants. If you buy your caterpillars from a distributor, you can get information on how to feed your particular caterpillar species. If you collect your own, you may need to refer to a field guide to determine what plants to provide for your caterpillar brood. If you collect your caterpillars outdoors, cut off a portion of the branch with leaves that housed your particular species. More likely than not, this is the host food for your particular caterpillar.
It’s important to remember that a caterpillars’ food must be replaced every day to keep it fresh. Caterpillars will only feed on the freshest of food. You may want to mist your caterpillars’ cage every day to keep it moist, but no other water is needed since caterpillars derive water from the plants they eat.
Cleaning the caterpillar cage
It’s important to clean waste on a daily basis when raising butterflies as residual waste cal encourage growth of mold. If caterpillars die, be sure to remove them quickly from the housing. If it died from infection, you don’t want the other caterpillars to be infected.
How to care for pupa
One day you’ll look and find your crawling caterpillars have been replaced with pupa attached to the sticks you provided for pupating. At this point, the only care you need to give is to make sure their housing stays moist by misting with a water bottle. The time at which your butterflies emerge will vary with the species. Most butterflies emerge from their pupa after a period of about two weeks unless they pupated in the fall. In this case, they may not emerge until spring. How can you tell if a pupa is no longer viable? It will generally turn extremely dark when the pupa is dead.
Emergence of the butterfly
When your butterfly first emerges, he will need to prepare his wings for flight and allow them to dry before soaring into the air. It’s best to give your newly formed butterfly its freedom by releasing it as soon as it can fly. Watch your butterfly take to the air! This is one of the rewards of raising butterflies.
Liked it
Lucy Lockett
On December 27, 2007 at 10:42 pm
I like butterflies, delicate and beautiful. I have outdoor ’swan plants’ and let nature take its course. They are grear to watch.
Ellen
On June 8, 2009 at 11:01 am
i
Ella
On June 8, 2009 at 11:04 am
i love butterflys
Ella
On July 27, 2009 at 9:13 am
This is really good information I think I might try it!!
Dr Robert E McGinnis
On July 27, 2009 at 11:58 am
I used to raise hundreds of Butterflies each year in Florida. Even though Florida is sub tropical, Butterflies are seasonal with the plants. In the spring, I would plant rows of what is called Butterfly plants, and when the blooms came I would open the screen door to the back patio that led out to the plants there. I would then collect the caterpillars and put them into my screen room with plenty of extra food. One little caterpillar can strip a large plant overnight. After my back screen room had plenty of the little multicolored crawlers, I would close the door and they would continue eating, but eventually, climb up on the screen and build a cocoon. We would invite the children in the neighborhood over to watch the developing chrysalis and the birth of the butterfly. Eventually, we would open the back door and our backyard would be full of fluttering wings. One of the local high schools adopted my idea and build a butterfly porch on the back of the school.