Butterfly room

I was at my mother in law's yesterday and, in jest, she came out with the strangest comment. She said all my fish room needs now, what with my fish tanks and growing number of plants, is a nice selection of butterflies and it'd be like a proper jungle.

It piqued my interest and this butterfly room thing is actually more common than you'd think. There's loads of stuff on you tube and it seems very very easy.

You can send off on line for the butterflies which obviously arrive in their crysallis stage. You just hatch them out. There are some stunning varieties and not all of them require nectar and pollen, some just need decaying fruit, meaning you don't even need to have a mass of flowering plants for them to feed on.

Their lifespans are typically weeks, but they will breed and all you need to do is supply the plants which the caterpillars need, and your prized houseplants don't get touched.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but the main reason for this post was to see if anyone has already been down this route and whether the project was an abject failure or roaring success.

 

Many years ago I had a mate who used to buy butterfly and moth chrysalis and go on breeding them.
He didn't devote a room to it and he usually bought native ones which he could let go.
But I guess the hobby has moved on from those days .
Could be an interesting experiment.

 

My wife isn't particularly into my fish or plants, I know, she's a funny cookie, I mean what woman doesn't like plants, lol. But as soon as her mum mentioned the butterfly thing she was all ears, she loves butterflies! I am definitely doing more research on this. It would be a great way for her to become more interested in my hobbies.

It seems each species of butterfly caterpillar have their own likes regarding what food they need, you just need to supply and grow that particular plant. And from what I can gather you don't need to supply them with exotic plants from their natural habitat either, you can swap them out for common garden centre type plants.

However, my only concern at the minute is that over time they become less choosy, they may start laying eggs and munching on everything!!

If and when I begin this project I will obviously update this thread, for now I need to look into it in a bit more detail.

 

I was under the impression that caterpillars are pretty specific regarding food plants.

They had a butterfly area at a local garden centre a couple of years ago but I never went in there, but it was only a summer thing.

I would guess if you want tropical butterflies you would obviously need the heating, which you probably have for the fish tanks but you might need artificial daylight as well.

 

Yes, my fish/plant room already has the warmth and humidity, no problems there. Light isn't brilliant because it's a north facing room but artificial light is easy to introduce if the butterflies would require that.

The choice of food for the caterpillars requires a little more investigation. Like you, I thought they can be extremely fussy, but from what I've seen so far you can swap things around a bit and still keep them happy.

I have no doubt that there are some species which will indeed not tolerate anything other than one particular type of plant found in their natural habitat.

I suspect some species will be very difficult, if not impossible to cater for, others will be challenging, yet doable, and others will be very easy, the latter varieties will be the ones I'll focus on initially.

 

You might like to check establishments such as Gallery — Stratford Butterfly Farm Maybe they would be willing to share some of their secrets?
PS And they do sell pupae.