Insect Lore Butterfly Garden Kit – 10 Live Caterpillars, Habitat, STEM Journal, 2 Chrys-a-lid Holding Logs & Feeder – Grow & Release Painted Lady Butterflies – Educational Science Toy

Great Learning Experience
Better than expected! Purchased as a gift for a 4-year old boy. He (and his parents) loved it. Makes a great gift. They enjoyed setting up, watching the progress and then releasing the butterfly. It teaches observation, patience and stages of the butterfly. I wish I had a photo to share, its was a fun experience and he was engaged at every step.

Purchased again..
So I decided to give this another chance. Purchased in guaranteed warmer weather. No fluctuating weather and they arrived. They seemed still the first few days but they soon started to occasionally move about and eat. However this containment is NOT humane. I am not an avid bug farmer but I do known about animal conservation and this is a poor way to give back to the ecosystem. So problem number one the size of the cup is not good for five that it comes with.As they start to grow their cup is riddled with poop. It gets so bad they can’t access the food under the mess. The instructions state not to open the cup beforehand so there should be cleaning instructions. Anyone who buys this should ignore the instructions and occasionally remove the poop or you will have starving pillars. I had this issue with one of mine it started to decay because of starvation to the point I took it out to try to revive its will to live. Eventually the containment started to grow mold and I knew this meant that disease had entered their containment unit and that one or possibly more of these butterflies are going to contain this disease. It means they are going to either die or survive and spread this illness to other butterflies once I release them.However the odds these infected butterflies live is minimal during the transfer process I noticed only a few out of each batch that I purchased had the defense mechanism twitch they should have during transfer process. I cleaned the silk threat, exoskeleton and they were completely still no function in them. As someone who knows about butterflies I know they twitch to ward off pray from eating them. So I have a feeling I’m going to have disintegrating virus goo soon and possibly more mold from the decay as these guys die off.All I can hope is the ones that were twitching actually pull through but at the same time releasing them into the wild is a death sentence for them and possibly the other bug population they come in contact with. Normally I wouldn’t be a giant bug advocate but this is deplorable and very inhumane. You’re sending five in a VERY small container and leaving them to hopefully eat enough that they cycle at the same time leaving them open to disease. You as a company need to provide PROPER containment over four times the size that is provided. Charge extra if you must but do not subject these creatures to starvation and disease because you want to skimp on some expenses for yourselves while you make more profit than you deserve.Animal conservation is a great thing. Teaching kids about the importance of even insect life is super important but this nonsense of subjecting even insects to disease and poor conditions I am almost ashamed I even participated in this process. These creatures deserve better, they deserve better instructions, better containment, more love and respect. They shouldn’t be prone to disease because these containers are absolute garbage.

Great!!!
Kids love this. It was her favorite gift and she had plenty gifts. She checked on them every day, named them and called them by name. Very cute.

They’re probably not dead.
Mine are just going into their cocoons so I cant say yet the outcome. I will come back to update on that part.I do want to say- if you think your caterpillars are dead, they probably arent. I kept thinking mine were because any time we’d go to check on them they weren’t moving. I ended up writing on the outside of the cup with an acrylic marker, drawing a line along each of their bodies, so that I could see whether or not they had moved the next time I check on them. I could mark them each time I checked on them, and I found they absolutely were alive & moving around. Now they’re all mostly in the cocoon stage.

I am sad for the butterflies. Six were dead. Four were alive. But imagine traveling in a small dark container with six dead. I am nursing the live ones. I’ll be surprised if they make it. Two have taken some sugar water. And one has fluttered a bit.I thought it took 3 weeks.It’s okay though, at least it’s an experience taking care of a few.Maybe Amazon will credit me half ($50) at least.

All the butterflies had died on arrival. The children and teachers were very disappointed. I would like a refund