Insect Lore Butterfly Garden with Redemption Caterpillar Voucher

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!

TIPS TO AVOID DEAD BUTTERFLIES This is a wonderful gift and children are much more likely to remember with fondness a natural wildlife experience like this, rather than a toy. It is easy to keep the net for an annual butterfly project too, and it's always magical to see them emerge. 1. Read all of the literature and view videos beforehand, and then read it all again. In fact, read a few books about insects in general, they are ace! Seriously, you need to not be in a position where the caterpillars turn up and you're scrambling around looking for the leaflet which somehow has disappeared from the box. Also you don't want to look like a bumbling amateur in front of kiddies. 2. Don't leave the care of vulnerable darling insects to kids. This all needs the care and dedication of an adult, and if you're not wringing your hands in anxiety over the fate of these tiny creatures at least twice a day you're not putting the time in. 3. Put a stiff tray under the butterfly enclosure to keep it stable when you move it around. It is a flimsy net and the bottom warps, resulting in pupae rolling around on the floor unless you put the entire thing on a hard surface. 4. Load up your cardboard chrysalis stand with a few dried peas to give it some weight and mechanical hardness, otherwise the card tends to fatigue and your carefully balanced cup lid laden with chrysalids ends up falling flat onto the enclosure floor. 5. Don't pin the chrysalis cup lid to the side of the netting. Opening and closing the zip on the lid results in the entire enclosure warping or shaking and flinging your precious animals around. Use the chrysalis holder, or blue-tack the holder to the ground leaning against the net. 6. Put a paper towel or tissue at the bottom of the enclosure - that meconium gets everywhere! 7. If you see any traces of mould in the substrate in your cup of caterpillars while they are still in the feeding up stage, carefully remove the lid after scaring the larvae onto the bottom of the cup, and scoop out any mould with a plastic spoon. This mould will spread really quickly because of the low ventilation and high humidity of the cup, and kill the caterpillars. The caterpillar food is meant to be sterile when it arrives but the hatchlings themselves may have spores on them which can grow into a big mould problem. 8. Don't remove any chrysalides that you think are dead. They probably aren't. Just put them on the floor of the enclosure and leave them alone. If they make it, great, if they don't, it's the circle of liiiife. 9. Don't bother keeping the butterflies and feeding them on nectar (a heaped teaspoon of sugar in 100 ml of water soaked into tissues on a saucer) for longer than a day or two, unless they are not healthy enough to survive in the wild and you might get a kick out of keeping them. They really prefer being outdoors and risk damaging wings if they are kept in the enclosure for a long time, and they get nectar all over themselves and it's terrifying to watch. 10. I have made this sound like a difficult, harrowing and thankless task. It is actually not hard, and is incredibly rewarding to witness a miraculous natural event with your kids, Enjoy!

Incredible product, great value for money. Bought this for our daughter's 7th birthday and have since bought a number as presents as something a little different and for our daughter's classroom. The kit arrived quickly and was well packaged. The caterpillars were easy to order online (with this kit you only pay for postage and packaging of caterpillars) and you can choose from given dispatch days. All of the caterpillars formed cocoons and eventually hatched into butterflies. Our children loved watching the life cycle, watching the caterpillars grow and eventually feeding the butterflies. When you're finished with the butterfly garden, it's very easy to clean in warm soapy water (as recommended in the instructions), it dries quickly and folds back down to enable you to put it all back in the box, ready for next time. In the instruction/information leaflet it does say to cover surfaces of furniture as the butterflies can leave a mess when emerging. This is great advice as they do leave a red residue. We just used 2 layers of paper towel underneath the garden and it was fine. Easily cleaned up and no damage to the unit it was sitting on. I would definitely recommend this product to any parent. It's a fabulous learning experience. Opens up lots of conversations and makes the children more aware of what's going on in the world outside their door. Our children are constantly watching for butterflies and Keeping an eye out for cocoons. We are all looking forward to repeating this again next year!

Great kit. I feel the need to leave a reveiw if nothing else to point out that some of the negative reveiws are because they expected caterpillars in the box, and others complaining that the caterpillar voucher can't be redeemed until March when it was bought for Christmas. Of course there are times of the year it simply isn't appropriate to release butterflies outdoors, the winter months being obvious to most. So please consider this before purchasing the kit and be aware that there are definitely no live insects in the box and a £2.99 delivery charge is made when you do order (at an appropriate time of year of course!). We purchased at christmas aware that it was a summer activity in the hope to spread things throughout the year, which worked great as it'd been sat on the shelf and our daughter was really excited when we told her it was time to open it up. Unfortunately the first lot of caterpillars we had didn't do so well, with only one becoming a butterfly and the others dying within a week.... HOWEVER, in the box of caterpillars you get a caterpillar garantee, that says they garantee a minimum of 3 out of the 5 will become butterflies. Super easy to redeem, just sent off the cup containing the 'bodies' and recieved new ones within a week.... that did so much better and all 5 have since emerged. My 4 year old found the whole process simply amazing and I'm suprised at how quickly they emerge... I missed it everytime despite checking constantly once the first had appeared. Have since watched videos of painted lady butterflies emerging with my daughter and the process is about 3 minutes long so no wonder I kept missing it... If you want to see them emerge be very vigilant! Great gift for kids of all ages, daddy and I enjoyed it as much as our daughter did!

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!

Bought this for my 4 year old grandaughter, she's loving watching them cocoon and start to feed. Please note that caterpillars do not come with this but you have a voucher to redeem and they are free. Takes about a week to come. 10 outa 10 Very educational X

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.

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!