Caring for your pet caterpillar – UPDATE
15.5 years ago butterfly, butterfly garden, caterpillar, cheap
I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our family, named by the kids as “Emily”
Now normally these are some critters you want to keep out of your garden but with my kids asking for the “Live Butterfly Garden,” bringing in a caterpillar from inside and putting it into a jar seemed like a much more cost effective option.
Growing up I have caught caterpillars with the great hopes that I would be able to witness its metamorphosis into a butterfly. Unfortunately, the lack of the internet or a nearby library I never got the knowledge of the particular “butterfly” I caught wouldn’t eat just any leaves I threw in it . Caterpillars are very picky eaters and each specie only will consume particular types of leaves.
If you found your caterpillar munching on a plant you are in luck and you can just pick a couple leaves a day for your caterpillar. They will not eat old or dry leaves and must be replaced daily. In our case our caterpillar was found on a plastic play set, which sort of limited out options. My girls did pick some leaves of various plants in our yard, and if we are lucky we may find one our caterpillar enjoys.
To improve the odds I was able to identify this caterpillar as a Painted Lady, which enjoys nettles and thistle. Both of which grow great in my area, though none is growing in my yard (which normally would be a good thing)
This led to a nice walk in the woods to attempt to find some leaves for the caterpillars distinguished palate, unfortunately we did not find any nettles or thistles though came back with a good variety of leaves.
That Butterfly Garden is looking like a bargain at the moment.
UPDATE — May 31, 2008
We are happy to announce that “Emily” has started has started her transformation into becoming a beautiful butterfly (or moth if my amateur identification is incorrect). We were successful in finding their favorite food which happened to be the little clovers growing in our back yard. Definitely a case of good reason to not kill all weeds with pesticides in your yard, by the way the rabbits love the stuff more than my lettuce so added bonus.
As you can see in the background “Emily” has some friends with her (3 total) though currently unnamed, though I am sure by the time my daughter reads this post she will fix that.
Stay tuned in 7-10 days hopefully we will have a butterfly/moth release.
UPDATE — 06/26/2009
Well 7-10 days turned into more like 26 days, just when we were thinking the worse, Emily emerged as a beautiful brown moth.
For info on the flight lessons and release, check out this post.
Tags: butterfly garden, cheap, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
15.5 years ago
Our youngest likes to raise butterflies too. She has a little butterfly habitat.
15.5 years ago
I don’t think our nettles have come out yet and I removed one thistle plant already. But I might be able to find some more if you need some.
15.5 years ago
I used to do that when I was a kid, but I always seemed to collect the caterpillars of moths and ugly flying bugs, only rarely did I find one that became a pretty butterfly.My biggest piece of advice is to make sure that once it goes into a cocoon you make sure there’s lots of room inside there for it to open its wings. If it’s too cramped the wings will dry bunched up and it won’t be able to fly.
15.5 years ago
Fortunately we found some leaves in the backyard that it likes. The kids even found another caterpillar (left this one outside)so appears others found the food as well.
15.5 years ago
Uh-oh – we’re not going to have a bad tent caterpillar year again, are we? *shudders*
15.5 years ago
Dugh, it is Maddies cattapillers. I am blogging about that.Onwww.myspeshlesister.blogspot.com. Thats it
15.5 years ago
I would prefer to have costly vegetables rather then having caterpillar
15.5 years ago
They all 4 of them are a cacon.
15.4 years ago
Did yours emerge yet? Mine is still cocooned . . .
15.4 years ago
Yep, first one came out yesterday. Looks like they are moths…
14.5 years ago
Ok um they dont have that much info about Caterpillars and i have to do it in school
14.5 years ago
I had one in 4th grade but mine came out with a dameged wing:(
14.4 years ago
Hi
My daughter found the same kind of caterpillar as you guys show….we are trying to raise it but don’t know what to feed it. I know it was a while ago but do you happen to remember what sort of leaves you found that it liked???
Thanks!
14.4 years ago
karre, I would recommend doing the same as we did pick a few different types of leaves around where you found it. It will find something it liked, in our case it was a clover something similiar to this
14.1 years ago
my little brother and sister are looking for caterpillars and i never would have thought that caterpillars are pickey WOW ”
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13.5 years ago
now i can have fun withm him is have fun to withm him your so cool tx
13.4 years ago
I found a giant caterpillar, looks kind of dull. What should we feed it? (We’re in fourth grade and we’re keeping it as a class pet in summer school.)
13.4 years ago
P.S. We found it on a sidewalk and have never seen it around before, so that’s why we’re not just taking the leaves around and pushing it in the bottle.
13.4 years ago
Kenji, I would recommend choosing a few different leaves from where you found your caterpillar. Then take notice of what leaves he/she is eating and just get those next time.
13.2 years ago
I found a catty in a bucket of fresh parsley …to all who is looking for food try that…he/ she really seams to enjoy the parsley…good luck
12.7 years ago
I have a caterpillar today and its very furry just like yours!