I just noticed these yesterday and it looks like they have grown to twice their size since then.
What cats are they?I will follow your advice from another thread and put 2 in glass bowls.I have only one broze fennel plant and about 10 cats.I hope this will be enough food for them all.
I am really exited about this.
Nancy
Nancy,
Those are Black Swallowtail cats. They will eat from the carrot familly;dill parsley and your fennel.I think your better go out and see if you can find more food.I think atleast the Home Depot here sell one gallon pots of parsley and sometimes fennel.
I know what you mean about being excited about them.I just found about 20 of them on my parsley.They are now in my butterfly cage with about 50 monarchs cats and chrysalis.
Good Luck
Don
Oh, that is exciting! I'm going out now to look at my fennel!
Good luck!
I have dill and parsely in pots so I will just move them near the fennel.Thanks for telling me.
What is a butterfly cage?Do you have a picture?
When we lived in S.Florida I got 2 Aristalochia (spelling?) at butterfly World.The cats ate the plants and that was the end of that.I have now started some from seed that I got from another member so that I will have many plants.Maybe then the cats won't eat all the plants.This was my only other experience with gardening for butterflies but now I am hooked.
Here's the cage
Don, did you build that cage? Karen
with my two weed pulling hands(lol) yeah it took me a couple of days.mostly because I wanted to make it light enough so I could move it solo if I needed to.Works well but I need to clean it better.Viruses form real easy.I can't tell if they are in the cage or on the plants I bring into it.
Nancy wasn't Butterfly World incredible. DH had to drag me out after 3 hours when we went at Christmas a few years ago
Just came out this morning.What a beautiful world!
DonnaB
Sorry I didn't answer.I was in Cleveland visiting friends.I love Butterfly world! my mother used to live close to it and I used to visit often.They also have a wonderful display of tropical plants.
Another picture.We just got out and we are ready to FLY.
Congratulations!! Now what do you do? Release them into your garden?
I would like to do this, too...
Now, let me get this right--- you collected the caterpillers and their host plant and put them into your big jar with cheesecloth for the lid and waited until they came out?
How many days did you wait? How many cats did you collect and put in one jar? And did you put in new fennel/parsley every day? ( I always thought you had to have a big cage and lots of plants.)
mmmm.... wish I could find some cats in my garden....I did find a monarch on my milkweed yesterday but poor thing was in the teeth of a praying mantis!! I was so sad/mad!!
Tabasco
It was such a thrill!I was watering this morning when I noticed movement in the jar.When I went over and saw the butterflies flying I let out such a cry of delight.We let out 4 in our garden.Two were ready to fly and the two others were still stuck to their cocoon.We waited awhile and when they were ready we released them.
My husband was as thrilled as I was because he was feeding them while I was away.We did just as you said.We put in 7 and I hope that 3 more will be out soon.It is our grandbaby's first birthday and I would love to bring the jar to his party this afternoon.
The whole process took about 2 weeks (shorter than I thought) from the time I first noticed the cats on the fennel.We fed them everyday and about a week ago my husband told me that they were on the glass and had cocooned on the glass.
I came home on Tuesday and today they are beautiful butterflies.
I remember picking the cats off my parsely but parsely costs 1 or 2 bucks at the supermarket.Seeing this miracle priceless
Well, congratulations again! And what a fun treat for the birthday party, too!
Thanks for the rundown. Sounds like I could handle the process and good luck with the remaining ones. t.
