How to Breed & Raise Butterflies

Video Transcript

"Mike Quinn. Been an Entomologist for 20 years and we're here at the Lady Bird Johnson Wild Flower Center in Austin Texas to talk about how to breed and raise butterflies. Critical stage is the caterpillar stage. And they feed on a, generally, a specific plant that is unique to each species of caterpillar. So you'll have to provide that plant for them if you're breeding them in indoors. And provide fresh food for them daily or at least every other day. And also need to maintain cleanliness and remove the caterpillar poop. As it were, we call that Fraze. And provide the right moisture and temperature for the development of the life cycle. And then where the pupa forms, you need to have a place for the butterfly to hang down and to let its wings harden. And then you can take the butterflies in to a tent or a green house or a screened enclosure and they will naturally mate with each other. And if you have the caterpillar food plant in there, the females will lay eggs on that food plant. And that will continue the life cycle and that's a really good way to breed and raise butterflies."