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Is Butterfly Farming for You? Two Hours A Day and Other Myths by Karen Huff I was flipping idly through a paperback book on home businesses when I first saw the phrase "butterfly farming". I was enchanted. My husband, Jerry, thought it was a great idea. We followed the contact info to a website where we were assured that dedicating one wall of a room and a couple hours a day, one could easily produce enough butterflies to make a comfortable living. The demand was greater than the availability, plus one would be helping the environment by augmenting impacted wild populations. My job as a substitute teacher was flexible, and paid little enough to be expendable. I'd maintained an interest in nature and ecology since I was a child. I was the kid who gathered fossils and rocks and shells, and tried to build a miniature desert museum beside the house when we moved to Tucson, replete with live spiders, lizards, and less savory critters. My best friend and I spent the better part of our eighth summer persuading a pair of gila monsters to come take dead flies from us. But butterflies, well, butterflies were always the embodiment of magic to me. This seemed perfect. Jerry loves what he does and would keep his day job. With his computer science degree, hosting our own website would be a piece of cake. We sent off $400, in return for which we got a manual containing some rudimentary information on butterfly breeding, some of which was accurate, instructions on making a hoop butterfly cage, some marketing advice, a list of resources, the USDA address for permits, and 6 painted lady larvae with food. It also included membership in a butterfly habitat club that doesn't seem to exist, customer referrals that never happened and "ongoing support", which was not very satisfactory. If I hadn't found the IBBA we'd have drowned. Then came the legal stuff. Parking is almost non-existant downtown, so I walked ten blocks to the government building I had to go to first. They have a checkpoint like airport security at the entrance. I emptied my pockets, only to be told the 2" Swiss Army knife on my key chain was illegal and must be taken back to the car. I trudged back, was admitted, then waited 45 minutes to be told kindly that the division I needed to speak with moved out of that building two years ago, and yes, they're sorry the city website hasn't been updated. Go two blocks down and.... Zoning was first. Yes, they would approve me raising butterflies if I promised to adhere to a long list of "no's" - no customers coming to the house, no signage, no signage on the car, etc, etc. I didn't ask about butterfly "farming" or they'd have rejected it for not being zoned agricultural. That done, I went to the office 20 feet away, where one applies for a city business license. They totally couldn't figure out how to classify us and ended up calling us a pet store. Which would have never passed zoning. Goody, now I can sell little butterfly leashes and......On to the state for a resale permit and the newspaper for filing fictitious a name and back to a long-expired meter but no ticket. Home for hours and hours of filling out permit requests for USDA APHIS, which took until our first season was over to come back limiting us to California sales, and telling everyone else to check the list on the IBBA site for a friendly butterfly breeder in their area. We survived..
Tuesday, 9am, I'm monitoring a hundred and fifty individual cups containing one monarch caterpillar each and Swallowtail Farms' artificial diet. With a high asclepias currasavica content, it's pretty viable, but development is slower, and I'm not yet able to predict timing for eclosed butterflies accurately. On the other hand, due to other old house emergencies last winter, we didn't get the planned hydroponic system built downstairs. and we can't grow enough milkweed in our 25x50 urban yard. The only wild stuff we've seen, with the exception of one plant struggling through a driveway and since cut down by the owner, is in park areas. Of course, that means it's protected and off limits. The few I did raise on milkweed have already chrysalized and are in a cage on the patio, which Jerry is modifying with a bigger door because he's a foot taller than me and didn't realize I couldn't reach anything in the third of the cage farthest away. Last week, he finished the large outdoor flight cage where we used to have a raised bed vegetable garden. The mister timer failed three days later and started staying on all the time. It has to be replaced, but we're getting morning fog anyhow. The monarchs we transferred out there last week, who fluttered about so gayly on that first perfect summer day, are fluttering about and nectaring and showing no interest whatsoever in mating. Of course, now that they are outside and the inside cage is torn apart for remodeling, the temperature has dropped and highs are only in the upper 60s. I've had to buy butterflies wholesale from other breeders to fill some of my orders. We will get this timing thing down. I think. Today, I find a dozen or so of the little pigs have eaten all their food, so I replace it. Ten have chrysalized on the lids and get moved to 32oz cups that give them lots of room to eclose. A dozen slow developers who weren't thriving have died. I check email, write a few responses, The painted ladies get their cages misted and get fresh Gatorade after their dishes are washed. New chrysalids get pinned up, empties taken down. chrysalis cage gets misted. Note for tomorrow; fresh orange slices for painted ladies and monarchs. Go buy more nectar plants. Everything outside needs watering and weeding. Thank goodness the flight house plants are at least self-watering. I come in sneezing, make some coffee, talk to two clients. One's going to send a check, the other is disappointed to hear that the probability of appropriate weather for a January release is miniscule. The mail comes and I discover the company that processes my credit card sales has taken a one time fee of $94.50 out of our business account. What!!! Sqwawk! I'm on the phone explaining that no, I did not agree to an annual fee, in fact shopped around to avoid things like this, and no, they didn't notify me last May, because I didn't contract with them till June, and no it isn't acceptable, and finally get it reversed. I make a note to check tomorrow to be sure FedEx will deliver to Atascedero on Saturdays. No time today - got a routine doctor appointment in a bit. I take the painted lady diet out of the fridge so I can transfer caterpillars from host plant to cups later. Come home from the doctor, check my email, respond to another client, catch up the books. Take half an hour for a late lunch, a cup of tea. Then I go downstairs to reorganize supplies. At 6 pm I'm transferring the last of the eyelash- size painted lady cats from the hollyhock leaf to the cups. The phone rings. I spend half an hour talking to the sales rep from a bridal magazine that wants our business. She's very nice, but they cost four times as much as the one we're advertising in with good results. I tell her I'll be re-evaluating our advertising venues at the end of the season- we agree to talk in October. Check email again- beautiful thank you note from a bride on her way out of town. It's time to move all the little milkweed plants that have started re-sprouting after being munched by hungry caterpillars out to the patio. My thumb hits a lump as I pick up one pot and discover a jade green chrysalis hanging from the lip. Ah, that's where that caterpillar went........ I reflect on how much smoother things are going since I quit my job to devote the time to the business. When I was trying to do both, I kept coming home to major problems; missed clients, ants invading the chrysalids, moisture in the cups. Then I think about talking to John last week, who's been at this for 9 years, and said "Just when you think you really know it all, something else sneaks up on you..." Tuesday, 11pm. I rinse out my teacup and notice there are painted lady caterpillars all over the host plant that I just transferred all the caterpillars to jars from at 6pm. Decide they can wait till morning. Do I love what I do? Definitely. Would I have had the nerve to start it if I'd known? hmmmm...... Karen Huff |
