Healthy Living Books Toys

Rating: - Get close to nature with this utterly wonderful experience
Absolutely superb present for the kids that amazes them and provides daily interest as they watch the tiny caterpillars transform into butterflies over a few weeks.

The kit contains a colourful pop-up enclosure with a feeding pipette and a coded voucher to redeem for a couple of quid for 4 or 5 tiny caterpillars. They can't put live caterpillars in the box of course. The voucher must either be sent by post or the code used on the Insect Lore website. I went for the web option used PayPal and effortlessly received the caterpillars within 2 days. You are sent a small clear plastic jar with half a cm of some kind of fatty substance at the bottom. The caterpillars remain in the jar (it has tiny air holes) eating away at the fatty food and growing at an incredible pace into large, black hairy ones. No additional feeding is necessary whilst in the jar and the lid must remain tight until they form chrysalises and hang from the paper that is on the underside of the sealed lid. Then, the paper from which they all dangle must be carefully removed with them attached and pinned into the enclosure and left undisturbed until they hatch into butterflies. Place in some flowers from the garden and a bit of orange, banana or other fruit, drip some sugar water via the pipette and they'll be very happy indeed. Three days later, release into the outside provided the weather is warm.

The kids were fascinated by the whole process, ran downstairs in the mornings to see the progress and took delight in observing nature so closely. I totally recommend this for any kids say aged 4+. You'll be happy to see the pleasure they get from it and somewhat chuffed as a parent (or relative) to have bought something unusual and educational.

And don't worry if the caterpillars hardly move or even stay completely still for some time - that's normal. They probably need all the rest they can get - as butterflies they will cover over 3,000 miles in the 5 weeks they live!

---

Rating: - Butterfly Farm
Kit contains a netting/plastic freestanding container to put the caterpillars in. The container can be squashed down for storage when not in use. When extended it measures just over 30cm tall and approx 20cm across.

You send off for the carerpillars and food - costs an extra £2. Caterpillars are normally posted in 5 working days but can take up to 4 weeks. You should only order the caterpillars when its warm wnough outside for butterflies to survive. A detailed instruction booklet on how to care for your caterpillars and butterflies is included.

I should think you can reuse the kit with caterpillars that you find in the garden.

---

Rating: - Fantastic!!
My 3 year old daughter loved this and we did too! Her favourite story at the time was The very hungry caterpillar so she knew what to expect. We bought her a proper magnifying glass so she could see the caterpillars as they grew (they are very tiny when they arrive). I was annoyed that I failed to see one single butterfly hatch and missed all 5. I sat and watched one for over 30 mins as I could tell it was imminent but was distracted and by the time I'd looked back I saw that I'd missed it! This is not the fault of the butterfly garden though! If you look around the internet you can buy more caterpillars another year and use the garden again. So it's great value for money and gets 6 stars for educational value.