Raising Butterflies Yourself

The technique for raising butterflies using the butterfly kits is nice and easy as it is what it says - a 'kit'. However, there's a couple of slight downsides to this; you have to cough up the cash and you only get a very limited range of butterflies to raise. Usually the Painted Lady in the USA and UK.

However, it is possible to do it all yourself and actually raise any of the butterflies that live in your area paying barely anything at all. Let's look at how to do this.

What You Need

• Large container
• Plastic or glass bottle, around 10 - 20 oz, (300 - 600ml)
• Water
• A stick long enough to fit in the bottle with 6-8 inches (15 - 20cm) sticking out the top

What To Do

A word or two about the container. This really just needs to be anything that;

• You can see into
• Is sealed to prevent any escapes but is capable of allowing air in

Now you can probably make a box out of card and clear plastic easy enough and make it look like this box on the right which was part of a kit that I used.

It has three sides similar to the front side you can see here, with a similar top. It would be very easy to make this - the windows don't need to be round, you can probably make them square more easily.

An alternative that some people use is a mesh bin or trash can. It can breathe, you can see into it and the walls are not too slippery for the caterpillar to climb if they need to or for the butterflies to cling to. Obviously the mesh size needs to be smaller than the caterpillar head or you will experience a very short life-cycle when you've found it's escaped!

Cover the top of the bin or trash can with a fine mesh of some sort. Window screen, netting, net curtain... again, whatever is fine enough to prevent escape. Secure this on the top with a large rubber band, bungee cord, string, tape, whatever.

Next. Find a caterpillar!

Ha. OK, what you need to do is go somewhere where there is lots of greenery. This can be your garden or it can be in the country close by. It doesn't matter which, but what you mustn't do is use a caterpillar you find in your house, on the path, on the wall or anywhere else that's man-made.

Why? Because the essential bit of this step is to know what the caterpillar likes to eat - and it isn't stone or brick! You see caterpillars are very fussy about what they eat. Many species only eat one type of plant! So if you don't know what that plant is, they will die.

I hope I've made that clear enough. If you try to feed them anything else, they will not eat it, even if they are starving! This is where many people fail, they think that caterpillars have simple tastes, but it's quite the opposite.

Thankfully caterpillars are just munching-machines for their entire life and usually don't wander far from their food plant. So when you find one on a plant, you can usually be pretty sure that this is its native food plant. When you are looking for caterpillars, look for a bunch of leaves that have got ragged holes all over them, or even just the stalks of the leaves left. This is usually a good sign there is an insect close by.

You'll need to carefully turn over all the leaves in the close vicinity if you don't immediately see where the caterpillar is. Having found one, is it a butterfly caterpillar? Well if you don't own a caterpillar identification book, get one from the library or even your school.

If you are going to be doing this on a regular basis, it might be worth investing in a caterpillar identification book. I've listed a few good books in the right-hand column of this page.

Know what the caterpillar is now? It's a butterfly caterpillar? Fantastic. Make a note of the plant so you don't forget it. Now snip off a small branch or twig with a number of leaves on it for the caterpillar to eat. If this is your Mum/Dad's garden, get permission or get them to do this bit in case it's their prize plant OK?

Fill the bottle with the water. Place the twig/branch into the water straight away so it has the best chance of lasting for as long as possible. Place the caterpillar on the leaves if it isn't there already, so that it can continue to munch away.

Remember that stick that I said you needed? Place that into the bottle as well. Why do you need this? Well the caterpillars will want to climb to a high spot where they will change into a chrysalis. The stick will help some of the caterpillars decide that's where they want to make the change. Other caterpillars may want to climb the side of the bin to the top and change into a chrysalis there. So we are giving them the choice. You can read and see more about this process on the butterfly kits page.

When you've done all the above, place the bottle into your container and secure the top of the container.

Now all you need do is check progress every day. Make sure the caterpillar(s) has plenty of fresh leaves to eat. They need lots to eat in order to have enough energy to make the critical change into a chrysalis. You did remember what plant the leaves came from didn't you?

Raising butterflies is great fun. You will surely love this activity so much that you’ll want to do it over and over.

A word of warning. If you are trying this activity late in the year, and if the butterfly doesn't emerge from its chrysalis in a few weeks, it's likely that it has decided to overwinter. In other words it's going to remain in this state until the following year. So don't think it has died, it has just delayed its emergence for a few months.

When they do emerge, they need a few hours for their wings to be 'pumped up' and then dried. Once they are ready to go, simply take the container outside, take the screen off your container and set your butterfly free! You will often be rewarded with the butterfly remaining in your vicinity or garden for a few hours or even days, particularly if you have butterfly-attracting plants. These won't be the same plants as the ones the caterpillars enjoyed by the way. The butterflies need nectar from flowers and it's quite rare for these plants to be the same ones as those the caterpillar fed on.

So there you have it. You can read a few more details on raising butterflies on the page about butterfly kits. I do hope you give one of these methods a try as they are both rewarding. Please do not raise butterflies whose caterpillars were brought in from a fair distance away. It may be that there these butterflies will not survive due to there not being suitable plants around, not just for feeding, but also for breeding.