Habitats

Due to the number of predators in the "wild" such as the tacid fly which killed nearly a third of last year's caterpillars, we bring the caterpillars inside and place them in large "gerbil habits".

The lid of the habitats have a piece of plastic canvas covering it.  The caterpillars are able to hang on and spin their chrysalis on the lid this way. Or we attach their branch of choice to the lid with twist ties after the chrysalis is formed.

Then when all the caterpillars have transitioned, the bottom is cleand out disposing of the leaves and paper towel is laid across it for easy cleanup of the fluids from the emerging butterflies.

If it appears some of the butterflies are going to emerge while there are still caterpillars in the bottom, the caterpillars are moved to a different habit.  There's a bacterial disease that could be passed on through the fluid, so you don't want caterpillars under an emerging butterfly.

Finally a quick update: we have released 37 butterflies, lost one in the chrysalis stage, 9 chrysalis, and dozens of caterpillars with new one hatching every day.