Ordered this after I found 2 Monarchs munching on a Milkweed plant I bought from Lowe's. Read up on Monarchs and saw that I needed a habitat for them to keep the predictors away. Brought them inside @ the habitat come in one day. After about a week as chrysalis's they "eclosed" or emiraged as butterflies. Totally amazing. After about 4 hrs I released them outside after their wings were dry. Hate to see them go, but we found another 2 or 3 instar cat munching on our milkweed plant. Looks like we have another cat to raise & release. The Restcloud habitat works great for me, a first time user. Don't know if it will work with 20 cats. The problem is having enough milkweed to feed them all. I just bought another plant at Lowe's. I don't know if it has eggs from the nursery, or whether a Monarch will lan on it & lay eggs. But as soon as I see cats munhing away it will be placed in the habitat & come inside. The habitat is well worth the price & is of very good quality & construction. I am now the Monarch "expert" in my family due to the purchase of one milkweed plant. I'm sure that you, your children, family & neighbors will enjoy raising & releasing Monarch butterflies.
Original cage was not able to sit straight but since I needed it for my caterpillars I did not return it. I wrote a review stating that, and without my asking the owner sent a replacement as a gift. This one is perfect and I am very impressed with the company. Every item will not be perfect - it is important to have a company that cares about its customer and product quality. I have ordered another smaller cage from this company.I have not been able to change my original feedback though it has been less than a month. ??
The media could not be loaded. We had a bunch of caterpillars that decided they liked our dill. We were concerned about our dog eating them so we go this and kept it with the pots in the shade on our deck. Before you decide to take care of caterpillars you need to realize how much they eat. They۪re like teenage boys who haven۪t eaten since yesterday. They also don۪t necessarily like cut it when you give them cut food.That said, this was a great butterfly house. It was in a well protected corner and had no damage during 90 mph winds. We had the clear plastic pointing towards the house so we didn۪t roast them. I love the extra tall size of it. When the butterfly was out of the chrysalis, we opened the butterfly house door and he was easily able to fly out.
A really nice way to protect monarch caterpillars from predators while they fatten up, make a chrysalis, and emerge as beautiful butterflies. I have two enclosures so I can keep newbies separate from bigger caterpillars. They stay in the same enclosure from caterpillar to butterfly. I۪ve released 18 so far this year and have three more to go in my first bunch. Just put a new milkweed in the other enclosure with 15 caterpillars on it!So much fun and educational, too. The mesh is easy to keep clean, and the one vinyl side is great for observing and taking pics without disturbing the caterpillarsThe 24 enclosure is plenty big to hold a small potted milkweed plant or a generous number of cuttings in a shallow container.
Side zipper is great. Don۪t disturb cocoon on top. Well made. Put a pot with milkweed inside and retrieved three roaming cats and put inside. All 3 have cocooned. Wish it was a little taller all my plants are too tall and can۪t cut back right now because of current residents. Brought 4 pots into lanai after predatory wasps kept killing cats. Now have cocoons on screen, ledges, pots etc and find cats roaming near pool etc. Have released 4 butterflies back out into the world. Using to contain roaming cats so they don۪t get stepped on or fall into pool. So far so good. If it were about 6 inches taller I would order a second. Hopefully they all emerge as healthy butterflies and can be easily released.