How to Raise Swallowtail Butterflies

Raising Swallowtail Butterflies

• 1

  Buy and plant the host plants of the specific swallowtail you want to raise. The swallowtail will only lay its eggs on the host plant. With zebras, it is the pawpaw plant; with tigers, the sweet bay magnolia; and with spicebushes, the spicebush. For pipevine, the pinevine makes a good nursery; and for the giant swallowtail, the prickly ash is its host. The black eastern swallowtail uses dill, fennel or Queen Anne's lace as a nursery. This is the food that the caterpillars will eat once they hatch. You can find these plants in the wild and most nurseries carry them.

• 2

  Build a fence with chicken wire around the plants to create a garden and protect the insects. Leave an opening at the top so the wild butterflies may enter to pollinate the plants and to lay eggs. The butterfly will come to the plants and lay its eggs. The size of the fence depends on the height of the host plant. Most butterfly gardens are 4 ft by 100 ft. The length really is up to you. Often, the side of a house is the length. The important thing is that the plant can grow and butterflies can get in and out of the enclosure.

• 3

  Help the cycle along by bringing in eggs or larvae that you have collected from the wild. Look for them on the leaves of the host plants. You can find most host plants in the forests near your home. Use gloves so bacteria from your hands doesn't harm the creatures. Put the caterpillars in a container with holes in it and, when you return to the garden, place them on a host plant's leaf. If you have eggs, place them in a sunny location. It takes a week for eggs to hatch.

• 4

  Feed the caterpillars and watch them grow. For the next two weeks, all the caterpillars will do is eat. They change their skin up to five times during the two week period. You will know when they prepare to change their skin because they will look swollen and stop eating for a time. Then they will emerge by eating their way out of their former skin. Some of them will change color and look drastically different from their former selves.

• 5

  Watch the caterpillar as it moves away from the host plant and finds a secure place to spin its chrysalis. The chrysalis will remain until it feels warm enough to emerge. Temperatures must be above 40 F for the butterfly to survive. Some will stay as chrysalises through the winter until warmer weather arrives. After the butterfly emerges, it will live only for at most two more weeks during which time it will breed and lay more eggs.