Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Butterfly Farmers - Untimely Death Averages?, 1 by Sheila_FW

Sheila_FW wrote:
I raise the bfs as a hobby with my gardening. This is only my second full year. My first year with BSTs I had about a 70% success rate I would say. Mainly due to my not cleaning the leaves and finding that the cats had been parasitized by the microscopic wasp. Then there was those that fell with wings deformed too much to fly; because I didn't have them isolated away from sticks of other chrysalis. This past year with using the plastic food containers and separating them as they get larger, I haven't lost but 2 of about 53 BSTs. I do still have 5 that haven't emerged however.
My rate with Monarchs has always been very good. I only had one last year that turned black (parasite), and one died for no apparent reason. This year I have had zero losses out of about 28 I think it is; but the season isn't over. As they get larger, I only put two or three per container and they pupate fine on the top of the container. I then remove them to tie them inside of a cage on a dowel stick or pinned to styrofoam.
Like others said nature only gives a 2% survival due to them being part of the food chain mainly; so we do what we can and if we loose a few, hope to learn from it.