Monday 27 June 2011

Raising butterflies!

A couple weeks ago, after seeing most of the plants a bit down because of the change of season, I decided on renewing the plants on the flower boxes, but, when I was about to take away the pansies, I noticed it had four caterpillars living happily and eating all. I had no heart to kill them, and after a bit of thought I decided to keep them until they change to butterflies. I think it will be fun to see them grow.

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Some small caterpillars from my garden



Back at my country I used to have a small "ranch" of swallowtails. Every year for sure, a bunch of butterflies used to lay eggs on the orange tree at the back yard. I would collect the newborns and bring them inside to a netting box I made, there I kept on feeding them until they turn to pupa and eventually to butterflies. Once they had become butterflies I had them in the house for a bit and then I release them in the yard. It was a small but very prolific farm were I got to have up to 32 butterflies growing at once.

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These caterpillars eat pansies like crazy



I had to stop having that small swallowtail butterfly farm some years ago because I didn't have time to keep them and also because after some ants established in that tree the baby caterpillars didn't had a chance to be born there anymore. But, I enjoyed those times a lot, and I had always wanted to try again. Maybe with these caterpillars I will be able to start a new little farm. It is really cool having them growing and flying around.

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Here they are on their first small feeding box



I had them on a small box and feed them the pansies on my garden, but they soon outgrow that and now I have made them a cage of their own. I also have been picking out some more caterpillars from around and now they are 15 of them. I hope most of them will make it to butterfly form. Back when I had the swallowtails I had a success rate of 100% with every small caterpillar eventually turning to butterfly, but I am not sure if these ones will do as good.

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This is one of the swallowtails from back home



To be honest, I am not sure what kind they are, or even if they are butterflies at all. For all I knew they can be moths or even some crazy beetle. They do look like leopard butterflies (Argyreus hyperbius), but I can only know for sure once they hatch. Hopefully they are something nice, and I will have the chance to keep growing them every year. Any idea what they might be?

15 comments:

  1. I'm so impressed! I've never had good luck raising butterflies. You must be a very special person to be able to see them through their life cycle. I can't wait to see what yours will be.

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  2. I have no idea what species your caterpillars might be but I think it is wonderful that you are raising them instead of throwing them out with the plants. More of us should be like you... :)

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  3. I am interested to see what your caterpillars become. My day raised butterflies and moths, too, as a kid. He was very young and it was such an odd hobby that he was written up in the local news paper. There is a certain weed that I allow in my garden for one reason: the beautiful monarch lays her eggs on the milk weed. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, I have great fun watching the process. Keep us posted.

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  4. A wonderful venture! I wish you 100% success and hoping they will be butterflies.

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  5. Fer; you are always doing something new! Maybe you should fit mesh screens all round your balcony and make it all into a butterfly farm?

    Being a Nature lover is a compromise: I love seeing butterflies, but to me caterpillars mean damage to my crops, so I have to decide which I love most.

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  6. They sell butterfly rearing kits for children here. It's magical thinking that a caterpillar canbecome a butterfly

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  7. Thank you very much! I hope they grow well. I have never raised this kind before

    ann ~ It is quite a fun hobby. Back at home everybody always wondered when they went into the house and see the box full of butterflies

    Mark ~ It will be so cool to have a butterfly balcony, maybe i will try some day. I think I got lucky because they were eating the pansy that I was about to take out anyway. I don't think I would have been as understanding if they were in a different plant.
    Just the other day I got rid of some green caterpillars that ravaged all my komatsuna seedlings. Though I knew those were just dark brown moths, so I didn't care as much.

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  8. Gratuluje pomysłu i życzę powodzenia. Myślę, że będą same piękne motyle. Pozdrawiam

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  9. Hi. The one in the photo looks like some kind of swallowtail to me. It seems to have the right shape. We have swallowtails here too. The ones I see are primarily yellow with black stripes, the opposite of yours.

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  10. Rearing catterpillars? Wow!
    I kill each of them,.....sigh....i'm not kind like you.....

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  11. I love your attitude! Instead of seeing the destruction and thinking you need to throw everything out, you see the opportunity to move in a new direction. Good luck with the butterflies!

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  12. This is so cute :-) Can't wait to see what kind of butterflies your caterpillars will turn into.

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  13. I'm so glad you saved them!! It will be interesting to see what kind of butterflies they turn into. If you post a close up of one of the caterpillars, everyone can help you identify them. :o)

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  14. Thank you very much! The butterflies are doing great, a bunch of them are all ready to go now.

    Patty ~ the one in the photo is a swallowtail. That one is from back home. The ones I have now are different

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  15. That's a beautiful idea! I'm tempted to try it; thanks.

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