For my birthday this year I got some vouchers to buy an Insect Lore Living Butterfly set. I was really excited for this as i have been wanting to get one for a long time.
The Butterfly Garden set comes with everything you need to "grow you own" butterflies! Which you can see if you click on the link.
I was excited to open the caterpillars and was surprised at how small they were!
I read through the instructions and it said that they needed a light room but not in direct sunlight so I put them on my desk in my room, away from the window.
After a few days the caterpillars had grown twice as big and were moving quite a lot during the daytime, i liked to watch them. The brown stuff at the bottom of the tub is their food and they started to dig their way into it making it look like crumbs.
After about 10 days the caterpillars were pretty big. They started to make their way up to the lid and by the time I had had them for 14 days they were cocooning on the top.
One of the cocoons didn't attach and fell to the bottom but when they had all cocooned Mum helped me to remove the lib from the tub and push it into the cardboard holder that came in the set.
We then put this into the net and laid the loose cocoon in the bottom to see if it would hatch.
Over the next 10 days not much happened but then I started to notice the cocoons getting darker. Then one morning I woke up and checked and found 2 of the butterflies had emerged!
I read up on the internet what food I should put in the net and found that they liked oranges and some flowers. We have a big bush in the front garden with big purple flowers and that always has butterflies on it so I guessed that they like it. So I cut a few blooms of flowers off and cut an orange in half and put them in the net. They went to both of these but they definitely liked the flowers the best, you could see their black tongue uncurling and going into the flower.
The other cocoons hatched over the next two days except for the loose cocoon. It was then time to release them in the garden. It was a nice sunny day so I was pleased that they wouldn't get wet!
The butterflies were quite tame and I managed to get two to sit on my hand when getting them out. The off they flew.
I put the loose cocoon into a lily flower to see if it would hatch outside. When i checked the next day it was gone so I hope it did.
I loved watching the caterpillars and butterflies. It was really interesting to see them change. The good thing with the set is that next time I just need to order replacement caterpillars.
I hope you enjoyed my blog
Emily :
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