Insect Lore Butterfly Garden (Packaging May Vary)

This is a lovely item. Not just for kids!! Have purchased for both male and female adults. My adult granddaughters introduced me to this lovely way of supporting butterflies, firstly by ordering the net then using the voucher enclosed with net to obtain the caterpillars for a small amount. It s great to watch the caterpillars turn into chrysalis and then beautiful butterflies which are then released. Instructions are excellent.

Wonderful experience - kids (and grown ups!) absolutely fascinated. Loved it and will order caterpillars from the insect lore website again.

I purchased this item with trepidation after reading the reviews that the code would not work in the UK and that caterpillars could not be redeemed with a USA code if you were sent the wrong box.My daughter saved her pocket money for this after doing it at school, so we went ahead and purchased it. It arrived this morning. The leaflet inside has a special code that you enter either by post (with £2.99 to cover the shipping of the caterpillar larvae) or you can also enter it online and pay via paypal, which I did. It was VERY quick and easy, I can only assume that some people have been very unfortunate and have received USA stock by mistake, or that the newer stock is all UK butterfly garden boxes.Anyway, I have paid the fee and eagerly await the caterpillars being despatched. You can only pick from a limited list of delivery dates so be prepared to wait at least a week or more for your caterpillars to arrive. ALSO - if you want to do this, eggs are ONLY AVAILABLE in the spring and summer months so be sure you order this item at the right time otherwise it will be useless until the next butterfly season!The box only contains the butterfly net/house, a feeding pipette, and instruction booklet, as well as your unique code to redeem the caterpillars.THIS IS MADE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR! I cannot understand the bad reviews from those intellectually challenged people who seem to think LIVE animals can be kept indefinitely on a shelf until they are sold. Caterpillars life cycle takes about 5 weeks so they would be dead and gone before the kits were sold! Of course they charge a handling fee to get you fresh larvae sent out. If people cant comprehend this basic fact, maybe they don't have the requisite intelligence to be explaining life cycles to a child. Don't be disappointed to find NO LIVE INSECTS in your kit! Sheeeesh! (eye roll)....I will update this reviews when the larvae arrive!27/07/13 - caterpillars arrived today. They are about 1cm long, black and hairy, and are in a small clear plastic cup with a lid and a cardboard sleeve that can be rotated around the cup to view the caterpillars. Already there are some silk like threads being spun at the bottom of the cup. Four of the caterpillars are very active and can clearly be seen crawling about and eating the thick jelly stuff at the bottom of the cup. The fifth caterpillar is alive but quite inactive and has not moved much. Some have even ventured to the underside of the cup lid.31/07/13 - all five caterpillars are still alive, though the slow/inert one is still lying at the bottom of the cup not having moved much. They have more than trebled in size since they arrived, the largest one is now about 2.5 - 3cm long. The inside of the cup looks a bit gross now with all the caterpillar waste product (frass) and shed skins. since last night alone they are noticeably fatter; it's amazing just how fast they grow, there can be a marked difference between day and night. In this warmer weather the process is, according to the booklet, much faster. I'm expecting the chrysalis's to start forming over the next few days. At this point I'm hoping for 5 successful butterflies!02/08/13 - 4 of the caterpillars are now hanging from the lid of the cup, one seems to be a bit more ahead of the others as it has already formed somewhat of a thick cocoon over itself, the others just look like they are hanging there. The fifth caterpillar is making its way to the top of the cup. I hope they all form cocoons at the same time as I don't know what to do if some have not and some have, as the instructions say you should not open the lid until all are hanging from the top (you can introduce bacteria etc into their environment otherwise). Exciting!05/08/13 - All five caterpillars made it into the cocoon stage, but one was hanging not from the lid but from another cocoon. We opened the lid as per instructions and cleaned away the silk strands and debris (this apparently can cause the butterflies to become entangled and have deformed wings if you don't do this). The cocoon that was hanging from another cocoon, we have detached and laid on a paper towel at the bottom of the enclosure. The instructions say this is okay and it should still hatch out. We are now to wait for the cocoons to turn a very dark colour, and the butterflies are suppose to hatch the same day! This stage was quite yucky if I'm honest and may gross out a sensitive child, as there were 'bits' of old caterpillar skin and what looks like blood (its just 'meconium' according the booklet!). We now wait expectantly for our butterflies!It is interesting to note that the cocoons were shaking quite violently on their own as we were doing this, apparently this is a defence mechanism! Very strange to see.12/08/13 - First butterfly hatched out yesterday morning. We missed the actual event but it was sitting at the bottom of the enclosure. Have put fresh cut oranges and peaches in the net, as well as some fresh flowers sprayed with 'nectar' (sugar water) as per instructions. The second butterfly hatched this afternoon, and a third looks like it is about to emerge. We have taken lots of pictures. Two down, three to go!13/08/13 - Two hatched out yesterday afternoon after writing my update. We actually caught the second one on video emerging from its cocoon - you have to be fast because once it starts, it's out in about 5 seconds, it is not the slow process you might imagine! We were very lucky to catch it. A fair amount of red 'blood' drips from their back ends once emerged, so put your habitat on some newspaper.This morning we released all four butterflies as the fifth one was not hatched yet. We got some lovely pictures - they are happy to sit on your fingers etc as you place them on the plants. My daughter was a bit teary for a while but after explaining that her new friends needed to be free to see the world etc and that they would come back and visit her if they could, she felt a bit better. The fifth butterfly hatched in the last two hours, so he will be released this afternoon, as I feel they should not be kept in the net any longer then necessary.In summary this has been an amazing experience for both adult and child. The whole process from receiving larvae to releasing the butterflies took 17 days. I highly recommend this item, we are already thinking about doing it again next summer!

We loved watching the caterpillars slowly transform into butterflies. We got to learn about the process close up and was a wonderful learning experience, was wonderful releasing them when it was time

Late last year, I remember reading several excellent reviews on the Insect Lore Butterfly Garden . It sounded incredibly appealing - so appealing in fact that I almost immediately went onto Amazon and purchased one as a christmas gift for my daughter .The kit, as it turned out was a terrible Christmas present . The kit itself was perfect - a lovely brightly coloured pop up habitat with a zip opening and mesh sides, through which you could see your butterflies. Although caterpillars were not included in the kit itself , they were included in the price - you simply had to send off the voucher at the bottom of the instruction leaflet, and you'd receive the caterpillars in the post. Nope, the kit was lovely, no doubt about it , but it was upon reading the instructions that I realised I wouldn't be able to actually get my caterpillars until late February at the earliest, since they need a nice warmish temperature in which to grow, evolve, and hopefully be released. Clearly this was bad timing on my part, and after a cursory glance, my daughter put this kit in the back of her wardrobe, disgusted that her evil mummy had purchased her a gift that was, for the time being, useless.However, in early march, we remembered about the kit . I filled in and sent off the form for my caterpillars, and received them through my door in about a week. I was better organised this time round - I'd read the instructions thoroughly, and knew that it could be anywhere between 3-5 weeks before the caterpillars were released, so I'd ensured we had no plans to go away. They came in a cardboard box that had the words 'Open Immediately' stamped across it, and not being one to ignore simple instructions, I ensured that we did .Inside was a clear plastic pot, slightly larger than a yoghurt pot, with a white lid that had air holes punctured in it to allow the caterpillars to breathe. There is a label on the top telling you what kind of caterpillars they are (painted lady) and the bottom of the pot has a thick beige layer - this is the caterpillars food. There is also a cardboard sleeve you can pop round the cup that has holes cut in for viewing.You don't need to do anything with the caterpillars at this point - simply observe. When we first got them, they were tiny, and actually didn't seem to really do much at all . However, within four or five days we started to notice that these little monsters were growing at a very rapid rate.They went from tiny, soft squidgy looking things to huge spiky caterpillars, and they seemed to grow even as we watched . The smooth beige disk of food at the bottom of the cup soon became churned up, with bits of it spread all over the container.After another couple of days, we started seeing silk thread beginning to cross the cup. We knew that soon the caterpillars would be turning into chrysalides, so we decided at this point to decorate our habitat a little, adding in some dry twigs, some stones, and a little moss. Soon the caterpillars had all moved to the top of the pot, and were hanging upside down fully encased in their cocoons. We watched as , over the course of a few days, these became glossy and hard - an indication that they were ready to be moved from their cup into the hatching habitat . This was easily done, we simply removed the disk from the lid of the cup, and pinned it carefully to the mesh sides of the habitat .Sadly, we did not actually see any of the butterflies hatch - we simply woke up one morning, and instead of hanging upside down by their bums, there were three butterflies clinging to the sides of the cage. At this point we needed to start providing them with some food - we opted for some sliced banana and apple, and a couple of wet leaves, but the leaflet offers a good number of suggestions . With three having hatched behind our backs, we were really keen to at least see one of the other two emerge, but they chose to be just as sneaky, emerging whilst we were having a meal out .They didn't really do a lot at first - they seemed to just hang onto the sides of the habitat, with their wings closed, which was a shame as we wanted to see the pretty colours . However, these do live for three to five weeks, so there was no hurry to immediately release them, and after a few days they became a little more active, spreading their wings more so we could look at them, and feeding more. The habitat was easily portable so long as we were gentle, and I did find that taking the habitat outside so they could feel the breeze did stir them into action a little.After about a week of observation, we decided to release them out into the wild - it was quite emotional really watching them all fly away . However,we still have the habitat itself, which is excellent for observing all manner of insects and is currently housing a couple of spiders. I think this is a brilliant educational toy that will interest children for a long time, and that can be used in conjunction with other activities - for example, I think this toy would work brilliantly alongside a reading of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' for younger children, but would also work equally well for slightly older children studying minibeasts at school.The kit costs £14.99 from amazon.co.uk and includes 5 caterpillars. Refill packs of caterpillars can also be purchased, costing £7.60.I think this is a brilliant toy - just don't do as I did and buy it as a present at a time when it can't actually be used!

Great for the kids

Daughter loved this

Second time I get those, my kids just live getting them for their birthday. I was always luck to get all 5 caterpillars to live and becames butterflies. Really recommend it