Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: I have babies!, 0 by Night_Bloom

Night_Bloom wrote:
konkreteblonde: you are so lucky that you've gotten to see your babies (I call them that too - my hubby wonders what I'm talking about when I say that my babies have returned to the garden) make it to butterflies. I didn't get any swallowtail babies last year - our spring was very dry and the butteflies suffered. I got a few Gulf fritillaries on my passion vines, but nowhere near the usual amount.

The year before that the swallowtail caterpillars grew and grew, but one day they were all gone and no crysalises. I think something got them. Maybe if I get babies this year, I'll do what you did and bring them in when they are big. I have a great picture of my babies from the year before last when they were huge (I'm an Entomologist, so 80% of the pictures I take are of bugs and spiders - my poor camera is hardly ever off the "close-up" mode), but I won't post it. I'll wait until yours get big and let you post. I'm interetsed to see if they are the same color as mine when they are big though. Yours also seem to grow much faster than mine, which don't develop in 2 weeks, I'm sure. My big ones are about at least as big as my thumb when they are grown and much fatter than the fritilaries. They also come later in the year, even here in Georgia. My bronze fennel is growing, but no eggs yet - though I did see the first black swallowtail of the season just today - now as long as the unseasonably cold weather doesn't get them, hopefully I'll have babies soon as well.

Do you have fritialries over there? And if so, have you tried raising caterpillars of those as well? They are even easier to raise than the swallowtails, and because the caterpillars "hide" when they pupate (sometimes on the house - heh), they have a good pupation rate. Fritilary caterpillars are "ugly" cute. I will enclose a fritilary "baby" picture.