How easy it is to breed butterflies with your kids

Suddenly the tablet becomes boring. Start a fascinating adventure with your children. Expert Susann Blum gives tips on how to successfully raise butterflies at home.

When was the last time a butterfly sat on your hand? If you're like most adults, then it's probably been a while. Yet small and inconspicuous animals are particularly suitable for joint observations with children. Especially if you can breed them yourself at home. "It's no longer so easy for us parents to keep in touch with nature with our children. I don't just mean playing outside, but also understanding, marvelling and learning," says Susann Blum from Lucerne.

The children are enthusiastic

Together with her colleagues, she sells various insect breeding products. «The children's enthusiasm is amazing. When a caterpillar in the caterpillar box munches on the fennel, the tablet is suddenly no longer so interesting,» she says. Susann Blum bred butterflies herself as a child. «I wanted to do the same with my son, but I couldn't find a suitable box to buy. So I decided to develop the product myself.»

Breeding is not difficult. The important thing is to be careful and well informed. The needs of the animals always come first. When rearing butterflies, for example, you shouldn't touch the caterpillars - they are there to be observed. A butterfly, on the other hand, will crawl onto your hand of its own accord when it is ready to take its first flight. When rearing ladybirds, every step has to be right, otherwise the animals will suffer. Adults should therefore supervise the rearing process. But experiencing this magic together is twice as much fun anyway.

Butterfly breeding begins in April

«Rearing the swallowtail caterpillar is incredibly beautiful» says Susann Blum and also gives a few tips for beginners:

• Plant plenty of fennel in the garden or on the balcony in April. The dainty caterpillars grow up to be small, hungry monsters and need food that you can't buy anywhere.
• The caterpillars can be found on large fennel or carrot plants in gardens from the end of May to the beginning of June. They should only be collected for breeding when they are still black and no more than 1.5 centimetres long. Unfortunately, the larger caterpillars are usually infested with parasites.
• If rearing is successful, beautiful swallowtail butterflies will hatch a few weeks later and fly away.
• The more butterflies that fly away, the greater the likelihood that they will return the following year to lay their eggs and that you will find eggs and small caterpillars on your own plants.

«After a few years of rearing butterflies, I now have hundreds of caterpillars in my garden every year. More than I can raise myself. That's why we've set up a network on our website to give away surplus eggs and caterpillars,» says Susann Blum. «The magic of watching an animal pupate and hatch into another animal is - in my opinion - hard to beat.»

At marienkaeferhaus.ch and raupenkasten.ch you can find more information and order all the rearing kits from Susann Blum and her team. Other suppliers also have starter sets on offer, such as Andermatt Biogarten.