Butterfly Garden

[kaitlinsmommy]

I think this would be an awesome Christmas gift for dd but am wondering if anyone has experience with them. Do we wait until spring to get it going? Just looking for advice. Thanks!

[caheinz]

Well, it depends. If you live anywhere in the north, you're not going to be able to release the butterflies to go on their happy way.

I haven't used any of these sets, but I study butterflies (in my research lab at the U). I'm torn about things like this -- many people will sell and ship butterflies to places that they don't belong at times that they wouldn't ever fly. Not exactly "right" in an ecological sense. And, potentially problematic for many other reasons.

But, I'd rather answer specific questions than jump on a soapbox.

(BTW, here's a link to my in-progress web pages (on campus) about rearing butterflies -- for general consumption: http://www.ben.edu/faculty/cheinz/welcome.html I actually put it up to help out people who find caterpillars and want to know what to do with them -- I've already gotten two emails out of the blue this fall about this species!)

[kaitlinsmommy]

Thanks, Cheryl. We live in TX so I think they'd be okay, but my dh had similar concerns so I wanted to check about them. Also, dd's preschool class is getting a butterfly garden so I thought they might not be bad.

[momofjandl]

When I worked in a preschool we had a butterfly house or garden kit. It was great for the kids. They were monarch butterflies-orange and black. I don't remember the company, but everything went as planned. I believe we did it in the spring. You mail away for the caterpillars, so you could get the kit now and read the instructions to see how long it takes. Though you said you are in TX so I guess weather doesn't matter.

At any rate, we had a good experience. Hope that helps!

Ruth

[nfowife]

I've used the butterfly garden many times when I taught first grade (I used the larger version that had 30 butterflies, but it is from the same company). The butterflies are painted lady butterflies which are common in many areas of the US (I lived in Florida and California when I used the kits). Anyhow, it was a great experience and I would definitely recommend the kits. You get a coupon with the kit so you can decide when you want to raise the caterpillars. The whole process takes about 3-4 weeks and it's very easy to do. The caterpillars come in a little container with their own food supply and you pretty much don't do anything until they become a chrysalis (on the larger kit we seperated them out into little containers with a bit of food, and each kid had their own caterpillar that they named and wrote stories about, it was so fun for them! But in the smaller kit I think they just stay together). Once they become a chrysalis you place them in the provided box habitat until they hatch. Then you can put leaves and twigs and stuff for them to land on, and also put a few carnations that you sprinkle with sugar water for them to feed on. You should only keep them for a few days after they hatch and then release them because their life span is pretty short (like 2 weeks I think). We even had some mate and lay eggs but we weren't successful with the eggs hatching into caterpillars to redo the cycle, it was pretty neat.
I'd definitely recommend it! I've seen the garden kit at TJ Maxx for under $15 including the coupon for the caterpillars! Definitely worth it for older toddlers.

[kcimato]

We do the butterfly unit here in VA in 3rd grade. You must release the butterflies after 2 or 3 days when the temp is above 55 degrees.As pp's have said you send away for the caterpillars so you can always wait til spring to get them. I bought this for my grand D's BD. I did a theme and bought her a pair of butterfly wing.The book and movie of The Very Hungary Caterpillar,and another book that explains the whiole life cycle. We also added a small butterfly finger puppet. Learning Resources
also has some inflatables that are the egg, crysalis,caterpillar and butterfly.

[kaitlinsmommy]

Thank you everyone! I am really excited to do this with my daughter and that is a great suggestion to buy The Very Hungry Caterpillar to go with it. Sounds like it will be a wonderful Christmas gift.

[caheinz]

Even in TX, I'd wait until at least March to have the butterflies. (They aren't truly year-round in many places in the US at all -- if it's not a hot/cold season thing, it's a wet/dry season thing.)

DS already recognizes butterflies and knows what they are. Though, the first time I let him hold one from my lab, he tried to eat it! The next time, I put it in a clear container, and he loved carrying it around. (Until we got to the vage where the others were, where he knew it belonged!)

BTW, painted ladies would be better than Monarchs. Monarchs don't overwinter in Texas at all, and introducing others (regardless of where their from) could actually be quite detrimental -- it's very hard to rear the caterpillars without disease, and you wouldn't want to introduce that to the wild population. (Just because someone is selling them doesn't make it right...)

[cdlamis]

How funny! I have been meaning to post here about how much I LOVE the butterfly garden we got for Julia and what great gifts they make!

It was the highlight of Julia's day to check on the caterpillars, watching them change. She spoke of nothing else those few weeks. It was a lot of fun for me too!

We live in Arizona so its still warm here so we just released the butterflies last week. We kept them in the habitat for a few days to watch them and then let them go. I actually choked up as I saw the butterflies coming out of their cocoons and again when we released them. I heard that the butterflies hang around your house even after they are released. A few nights ago we saw a butterfly on our back porch that I swore was one of "ours". It came up to Julia and kept landing on her, almost like it was attacking her. It flew in our house and stayed all night. The next morning I found it again and put my hand out- it landed on my hand and we took it outside. Can you tell I am still attached to my little butterfly babies? :)

Enjoy!
Daniella
Mom to Julia 6-13-02
and Isabella 12-18-04