Raising Butterflies

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If you have grade school aged children, raising butterflies can be a great experience. Monarchs make for one of the most ideal to raise at home. This can be a great hands on experience for them. You can teach and show them the different life stages of the butterfly.

The first thing you really should do is purchase a book about monarchs this will help your children begin to understand their life cycle. Monarchs use common milkweed as a food source, along with laying their eggs on them. Planting milkweed in a butterfly garden is a great way to get some monarch eggs. Monarchs generally lay their eggs, whcih look like tiny white footballs, on the bottom of milkweed leaves. Then you simply clip the leaf the egg is attached to with a scissors. Once you have clipped the leaf, put it into a Tupperware container.

Now this is a good temporary home for your egg. It wont take long before they hatch and turn into tiny caterpillars. The caterpillar will need new milkweed leaves every couple of days. Make sure to remove old leaves, since they will mold before too long. A butterfly net house is a great place to move your caterpiller as it begins to grow. These are idea for housing your caterpillars as they turn into butterflies. Just make sure that when you open the top you are very careful of any chrysalis that may on the top.

A Monarch chrysalis is a bright green and will remain this color until right before the butterfly immerges. About 24 to 48 hours before it is ready to immerge, it will turn clear, allowing you to see the monarch's wings. If you want to learn more about attracting butterflies to your home, along with housing them, the butterfly book is a great resource. This can be a great learning resource for your children.