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~Rachel~
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| Posted: Aug 21 2006 at 12:52pm | IP Logged
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OK, I am going to admit a woeful inadequacy here... but I have never kept caterpillars to watch them change... can anyone give me pointers? I spotted some tiny swallowtail caterpillars just yesterday... 
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~Rachel~
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Sarah
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| Posted: Aug 21 2006 at 5:38pm | IP Logged
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Boy are you in for fun!
We have had a blast with caterpillars this summer. Its on my blog.caterpillars
I would start with one in a jar with a stick that reaches all the way up to the top. Then pick leaves from whatever plant they were munching on. Our swallotails were on parsley. Leave the stem to the leaves on and put them into the jar with some water in the bottom so the stem is in the water.
Then cover with paper and a rubber band and poke holes in the paper. Feed the caterpillar when he eats all his leaves. He will either roll up in the leaf (if he's a moth) or attach himself with a "sling" of silk to the stick. We have LOVED our swallowtail caterpillar. If he's a black swallowtail, the "book of the week" on my blog is all about them and the kids LOVED it because we could relate. If you squeeze the BL. Swallowtail caterpillar he will poke out these orange "rabbit ears" and if you touch them your hands will smell horrible for hours and NOTHING takes it off--just a warning.
We have five jars of things now and have successfully raised many.
Also, the caterpillars do poop mouse size poops and they kind of smell bad- another warning. I just dump out the gross water each day and add new. (Not a lot of water). Just overlook this because its worth the effort.
Do I make sense?! I can't wait to hear how it goes. Keep us posted!! (Okay, maybe I'm weird--these things make me happy ).
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Wendi DeGrandpr
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| Posted: Aug 21 2006 at 7:56pm | IP Logged
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We participate in Monarch Watch each year. This is our eighth year. We are blessed with a boon of monarch caterpillars right in our yard this year. Very exciting as we have been grooming a milkweed patch and planting lots of butterfly flowers.
We have used many different containers. We have an aquarium standing on end with a vase of milkweed in it - the cats can spin thier button on the glass top and hang there just fine. We also have two hanging cages we made from a pattern on www.monarchwatch.org (there are lots of resources there - excellent site!). Just FYI if you use a vase for milkweed wrap papertowel around the milkweed to keep the caterpillars from getting into the vase and drowning. Also a paper towel on the bottom of the cage allows us to easily clean out poop and keep the odor down.
Right now we have one butterfly to release tomorrow (seven already gone) and about twenty chrysalises and twenty plus cats still to go. We usually don't have this many but my kids keep bringing them in from the garden ..... Raef and Katiana are already becoming butterfly "experts" - they check several times throughout the day to see which cats have morphed and let us know if there are butterflies. The also double as police for escaped caterpillars - yes every now and again we have them hanging in unusual places in the kitchen. They have already seen the caterpillar shed it's skin, change into a chrysalis and watched a butterfly emerge. One of God's miracles we marvel at each time we see it happen. Even the older girls do not tire of this project! I keep a poster of the life cycle close by so they can keep going over it and asking questions.
This year shows much promise as a great year to be tagging monarchs. We are hoping someday to have one of our tags recovered in the overwintering sites in Mexico.
Enjoy!!!!
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"We can do no great things - only small things with great love." Blessed Mother Teresa
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Sarah
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| Posted: Aug 22 2006 at 8:58am | IP Logged
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Oh, how neat Wendi, to have the Monarchs. We mostly find furry moth caterpillars and even love those. I can't imagine monarchs! 
Do the Monarch caterpillars have those "rabbit ear" things that the swallowtails have (that release a foul odor)?
I'm going to try the paper towels--good idea!
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Wendi DeGrandpr
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| Posted: Aug 22 2006 at 9:15am | IP Logged
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The monarchs don't have rabbit ears but they do taste very bad to birds etc and that is their protection. Something does eat them however. We have been bringing them in as when we leave them on the milkweed when they are little they tend to disappear - not sure at all what is going on. We continue to watch and wonder.
We did swallowtails one winter - my dd got a habitat for Christmas and you ordered the caterpillar. It was great but I have to admit I almost threw out the cocoon. I told her I was going to as it seemed like we had it for way too long (you can tell I am used to the monarchs - 10 days) - and this had been months. Anyhow the day I went to throw it away lo and behold a butterfly sat in the habitat. Was I ever greatful I hadn't thrown it away sooner!!! 
What is the average time it takes a swallowtail to emerge?????
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"We can do no great things - only small things with great love." Blessed Mother Teresa
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rose gardens
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| Posted: Aug 22 2006 at 7:06pm | IP Logged
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Wendi DeGrandpr wrote:
What is the average time it takes a swallowtail to emerge????? |
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Our Eastern Black Swallowtail just emerged today!! It's a girl! I wanted to share about it so I'm glad I found this thread.
We found her munching on our dill a month ago. (We had many, many caterpillars on the dill this year.) We brought a caterpillar inside when it was fairly large and it took another week to cacoon. It cacooned for about three weeks. I got a little worried that it was taking so long, especially when I read that they cacoon over winter. I read somewhere else that swallowtails butterfly populations go through a few lifecycles over summer, so fortunately we didn't have to wait until spring. Be ready to watch for the butterfly emerge shortly after the cacoon starts turning black. I noticed it starting to change color last night, it was darker this morning, and by lunch time, she emerged. (We went out this morning and missed it. When we got back home our butterfly was hanging upside down drying herself.)
To keep the caterpillar habitat cleaner, we used one of the plastic cups with lids for straws and set dill through the straw opening. This year one of my children recieved as a gift from a relative a "Live Butterfly Garden" with a pop-up net cage, which worked great. Instead of mailing away for the caterpillars, we just find them in our garden. (Last year, we watched a monarch and we used a huge glass vase covered with plastic and a few holes poked in it.) I placed a cup with a variety of flower in the cage and the butterfly seems to like the nepeta best. We plan to release our butterfly tommorrow.
Now, can I ask the rest of you, are your kids as excited as you are about caterpillars and butterflies?
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~Rachel~
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| Posted: Aug 24 2006 at 9:31am | IP Logged
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Oh yes. My 2yo asks to see the caterpillars every day... outside 
I'm hoping to find a nice home for them soon!
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~Rachel~
Wife to William
Mum to James 13, Lenore 8
Lighting a Fire
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: Keeping Caterpillars
