This Spring, I decided I wanted to be a cool Mom and raise some butterflies with my kids. It seemed easy enough and it turned out that it really was completely hands-off and EASY. And so worth it, too!
I ordered our Butterfly kit from Insect Lore. The five caterpillars arrived in a small container. It was a chilly day in April and none of the caterpillars were moving, so I figured they had died. I placed the cup carefully above the dryer, figuring that it was the warmest spot in the house. Within a few hours, the teeny tiny caterpillars started moving. Inside the container is caterpillar food, so the five caterpillars just hung out in the container for about a week. They grew SO FAST, it was mind-boggling!! Every day we would peek at them and the kids were just SO excited to see a visible difference in their growth each day. After about 7 days, the caterpillars climbed up the the lid of the container and started to cocoon themselves. Unfortunately, that was when we lost one caterpillar.
The four caterpillars climbed up to the top and cocooned themselves. We did not watch this happen but now that I’ve observed the caterpillars/butterflies through one life cycle I have a general idea of the signs of beginning to cocoon and will watch them much closer next time! We woke up one morning and all four were nicely cocooned in their chrysalides.
The next week was fairly boring as they just hung on their chrysalides. On day 4, we moved them from the container into the butterfly home in preparation for their hatching. When I moved them, one chrysalide did this super fascinating defensive mechanism where it shakes itself (like a rattlesnake tail). It did this for a solid minute while the kids and I watching total fascination. It was interesting that only one of the four did it. After transferring the chrysalides to the butterfly net, we waited several more days.
After about 6 days we started to watch them much more closely. I really wanted to see one come out of its chrysalide! But one morning we woke up and 3 had hatched out into butterflies!! The fourth one was still encased inside, and once again I thought that it was dead. However, as I stood next to it and made breakfast, I realized that it had come out, too!! Somehow I was standing RIGHT NEXT TO IT and I missed seeing it hatch!!! ARG! Still, we were so delighted to see the butterflies with their tiny wet wings. It took them a few hours to dry off before they were able to fly around in the net.
We kept the butterflies for about three days, feeding them with fresh flowers from our yard and a small cup of sugar water. Then, we released the butterflies!
Tips for raising your own butterflies:
Don’t forget to order both the caterpillars and the butterfly net! You can order this combo on Amazon, but it will arrive with only the net (no caterpillars) and a coupon to go to InsectLore and redeem it to order the caterpillars. IMO, it’s just easier to order it all from Insect Lore. Of course, if you already have a net, you just need to order the caterpillars!
Don’t forget to keep a daily journal. I wish that we had done this!
The process ends up taking several weeks, so make sure that you are able to handle such a drawn-out process. It is extremely easy and there is practically no work needed, but it’s just a lot of forgetting that we even have caterpillars growing on top of our dryer.
Watch closely for the changes into each stage. We missed the actual changing every single time and I wish that we had been able to observe them better!
I highly recommend this as a hands-on way to learn all about the life cycle of a butterfly! It was fun and as you can see from some of the pictures, my kids were so DELIGHTED to have their very own butterflies! I will for sure be doing this again next Spring!