Austin Texas Butterfly Farm Offers Beauty & Learning

During spring and summer months you might count yourself blessed when a lovely butterfly flies in to visit your garden. Now think about what it would be like among countless butterflies delighting in the colorful display they perform. Butterfly farms give you the opportunity to do just that. Wild-Connections Butterfly Farm & Nature Center in Austin Texas is open to everyone.

The butterfly farm opened for visitors in 2004. Butterflies and plants are featured in a 2000 square foot area. It was opened to educate children about the wonder of nature, but certainly all that enter the farm will be rewarded with a new understanding of how closely linked all living things are.

Butterflies are quite friendly so while visiting at the farm hold a piece of melon or cantaloupe and let the butterflies land on it. They enjoy feeding on the fruit. What does a caterpillar eat so that it can become a butterfly? A caterpillar eats certain types of plants. It usually has one favorite kind referred to as the host plant.

For instance, the caterpillar who later becomes the Monarch butterfly, will only eat milkweed. It will starve itself to death rather then eat anything else. A butterfly farm provides each different kind of caterpillar they raise with host plants specific to each one.

Caterpillars are very fragile. They can drown easily, but love a humid environment. Misting water is an option to help keep them cool in extremely hot weather. Butterfly farms in Texas heat have pulled it together by keeping a cool head and finding innovative ways to circulate air.

Wild-Connections showcase around nine Texas butterflies and keeps them in mesh-houses. The caterpillars are kept in laundry hampers made of mesh in an open-air greenhouse.

Butterflies live anywhere from two days to a year and sleep through the winter months. If you are considering taking a trip to a butterfly farm make sure it isn’t closed at the time you would like to visit. Depending on weather warmer winters might allow butterflies the freedom to keep moving about well into the season.

Butterfly breeders such as Wild-Connections breed butterflies for other Texas exhibits. This is one way of keeping the survival of butterfly numbers up. They to have suffered by fewer habitats, predators, and unpredictable weather. Pesticides thought harmless have caused great damage in the decline of butterflies. Though it may not always be noticeable in many places.

There are many butterfly farms scattered through Texas from Fredericksburg to Sulphur Springs. Many butterfly farms provide butterfly releases for special occasions or weddings. Most often used for butterfly release is the Monarch. One reason other species of butterfly are not used is because some require a license to breed. Others may be more vulnerable and have a fewer survival rate compared to the Monarch.

Butterfly farms are a unique and fascinating way to spend time individually, with friends or family. It is through the gift of beauty and oneness with nature we will be able to seek out a way to one day save it.