Adventures in Caterpillar Care (3)
/This post is about my adventures in caterpillar care from June 25 to July 1.
The cecropia moth caterpillars (4 of them) were moved to their own bin. They are slower developing than the luna moth caterpillars and started out still having lots of block bristles but had progressed to more colorful instars a few days later. They are still quite small.
My daughter sent me a picture of a ‘wild’ cecropia moth caterpillar on elderberry. Mine are eating sweet gum.
There are 40+ luna moth caterpillars. They are bigger and go through sweet gum leaves faster. I replenish leaves twice a day in the big bin.
The big bin with a cooling rack to support the leaves works well. I take out the denuded twigs and put in new – using the rack to support the leaves well above the frass level. With 40 caterpillars – a lot of frass accumulates in just 24 hours!
To refresh the bin, I put a layer of paper towel in the bottom of a fresh bin, then move the cooling rack from the old bin to the new. There are always 3 or 4 caterpillars among the frass; if they will crawl onto a leaf, I use that to move them but otherwise, I cut the paper towel around the caterpillar and move it on the paper towel.
With the caterpillars eating so much more, I got some leaves from another sweet gum and also went to the Botanical Garden after a storm and found a branch that had be ripped off a sweet gum….lots of caterpillar food! I am saving the neighborhood tree for when I need a quick food source for the caterpillars. Sweet gum has the advantage of staying fresh for days in a closed bin….although it doesn’t last that long if there are 40 caterpillars in the bin!
