"In your garden you have followed all the
guide lines to establish a Butterfly Garden".

And now you have hundreds of butterflies visiting those many flowers and shrubs that you planted. In touring your yard and inspecting the plants, you notice a caterpillar here and one there. Gosh! It won't be long now until you will be finding chrysalis that will soon be beautiftil butterflies. BUT WAIT! Wasn't that a Brown Thrasher that just nailed a couple of the caterpillars, and what about that gang of Robins that just tore through your Butterfly Weed. Examination soon shows what was going to be a great "Crop" of butterflies was only lunch and dinner for your favorite birds.

This happened to me last year and I decided that I wanted to save a few of these guys and this would also allow me to watch and learn how they developed from caterpillars to chrysalis and finally to a butterfly. As a Docent at the Tulsa Zoo I have helped to "Raise" a few butterflies for the Education Department. We used these caged caterpillars and chrysalis in some of our programs, teaching kids about butterflies. So, I had some knowledge as how to raise a "Crop" of butterflies.

Here are the steps that I took in order to save a few caterpillars from being a birds dinner. You too can do it. The first thing I did was to go by a large plastic container, that had a top with a lot of air holes. Most people call it a critter keeper (see picture at the left). It measured 7 x 11 inches at the top and was 8 inches deep. I then found a couple of small twigs that would fit in the container just below the level of the lid. When I had this done I began my search for caterpillars (Monarchs at this time). My first search was very successful. I found ten. Ranging from about ½" up to about 2" long. I then picked a lot of leaves from the butterfly weed (this was the plant on whic they were feeding), and put both the caterpillars and the leaves in the container. I then brought the cage inside where it got indirect light, but not direct sun light.

You will find that these guys are voracious eaters. Since they start out as eggs about the size of the period at the end of this sentence and will grow to 3 inches long, in the very short time of about ten days before becoming a chrysalis. I had to put food in the container about twice a day to keep up with their appetites. They grow about 2,000 times the size of the egg.

Then the magic begins to happen. One, two, then four, and finally all ten caterpillars had pupated into a chrysalis shown in the picture to the left. The Monarch chrysalis is a beautifiil thing to behold. A beautiful green color with a gold beaded band close to the top (see picture). I even put the container on our decorative pie rack in the breakfast room so anyone who came to visit could see the wonderful work of mother nature.

In about ten days the butterflies will start to emerge from their "Housing Unit" (Chrysalis). This will depend on the climate or temperature of the cage. I kept them in the container long enough for their wings to dry, about 4 hours. I then took the cage outside where I removed the top very carefully, since chrysalises were hanging to the lid. I put my finger in front or along side of the butterfly, let it crawl on my finger, then I would take it over to a flowering plant and, most times, it would crawl on to the plant. Other times it would just fly off into the garden. See picture of release.

I released a total of 32 Monarchs out of 34 caterpillars that I fed. There is some kind of mite or fungus that will destroy the chrysalis. This happens in the wild as well, so don't feel any guilt if you lose some. I had a great deal of fun in watching the process of caterpillar to butterfly and felt that more survived through my efforts than would have had they been left in my garden. Hope you have as much fun and enjoyment as I did!