Butterfly Project

We decided to try growing butterflies this spring.  We bought the larvae at the Education Station here in Edmonton.

There were 10 larvae in the feeding container.

Day 1

It didn't take long for the larvae to change into the caterpillars  The majority of them grew really fast and they were big in a few days, but there was a few stragglers.

Day 6

By day 14 they were ready to form in to the crystals stage and the cocoons began to hang from the top of the container. It was hard to believe that they could hold on to the paper towel on the top holding there whole bodies.

Day 14 starting to transform

We transferred them in to a butterfly habitat and on day 22 the first of the butterflies appeared.

Transferring the first batch of cocoons was an adventure as 2 of the caterpillars came over when we moved it and 2 of the caoons had fallen to floor of the container.  But with some wrangling we got the 2 misfits back into the food container and all the butterflies emerged just fine even the ones that had fallen.

Butterfly Habitat

We let 6 of them go in the backyard on the weekend.  3 are happy in the habitat for the moment and the runt caterpillar is still eating and will hopefully make its cacoon soon. The butterflies were gone and out the yard very fast but maybe they will come and visit our yard again soon.

Aubrey seemed to enjoy the caterpillars and the butterflies even though she is not a big fan of living bugs and said she wants to do it again next year.