Newbie at raising cats.

I've found, what I think is a black swallowtail cat. Since I like to save it from predators, it got into my clothing and hitch a ride indoor this morning. So I put it up on my Euphobia and went for some info. Thus far, I've some prelimary tips. So I got a glass jar, a soaked paper towel, and a fresh branch of Milkweek for it to munch on. Then added a few branches of scotchbroom for it to crawl on. I seal the top of the jar with seran wrap clear plastic.
My question now is. Does it need air? Will I need to punch holes on the top lid to allow air into the jar?

Thanks much.

This message was edited Sep 24, 2007 3:36 PM

Lily: If it IS a Black Swallowtail cat (I can't quite tell from your photo), you need to give it what that species uses for it's host plant: parsley, fennel, dill, or rue. Milkweed is not the host plant of the Black Swallowtail, so it won't eat it. And yes, the cats need air! You can use a piece of muslin around the top of the jar, secured with elastic. If you look thru all the many posts re raising cats, you'll find LOTS and LOTS of info. That's how I learned!!!!

Hi Thea;
But this one that photographed above I found it on my Milkweed. I found three of those, and none survived. This morning I happened on one. Would like to see it survives the harsh outdoor. I saw those cats stripped off the milkweed's leaves. I'm now confused.

If you found it on milkweed, then it is either a Queen or a Monarch. So, you'll want to continue feeding it milkweed until it pupates.

I saw this one the day it pupates, but there shortly later the bird found it. :(

It's awful when that happens Lily!! I love the birds, but they can do a number on the little cats! That's how I got into this hobby, this summer: I have lots of beautiful cardinals here, but then I found out they love to eat Black Swallowtail cats, so I HAD to start bringing in the cats to raise! Now I'm totally addicted! I don't have any milkweed around me, so I'm going to plants some in the spring, I'd LOVE to attract some monarchs! I had them when we lived in CT (though I didn't raise them), and I love their pretty chrysalis!!!!
Good luck with your little cat! Just keep reading everything on this great forum, everybody is so full of knowledge and willing to help!

I hope I'm doing the right thing. I kept the cat. in a jar, with some milkweed leaves. I didn't see much activity and looks like it's ready to pupate, or something. I'm hoping so. Returning to the garden a little while ago, then I found a bigger cat. Will collect it with some of the leaves that it was munching on. This time it's on my Pentas. I saw lots of black swallowtail butterflies on Pentas recently, so hopefully it's a queen or monarch? Will come back with pics.

This is where I found the currious little thing. Its marking with eyes-like dots on it head and along its body. Cool looking fella! This is a Pentas cuttings pot that I've outdoor.

The cutting already took root, but I'll let the cat. have it anyway. So I pulled it up, cat. and all.

Now it's safely in my jar with another fresh cut of Pentas in a florish tube of water. Took it indoor, hoping for the best. Wish me lucks ya'll.
Kim

Hi Kim!
Boy! You've certainly got alot of action! The brown critter that you pulled off the Penta looks like some type of Sphinx moth. Others on here have raised them...not me though. He looks cool!

Adrienne

Lily, Adrienne's right, it's a Tersa Sphinx cat:

http://www.birds-n-garden.com/tersa_sphinx_hummingbird_moths.html

They ate all my Pentas down to nubs and I never did find them. They will become a beautiful moth. That link has some info of how to raise them inside.

It's better to have a bigger container that doesn't have a removeable lid because when they get ready to pupate they will climb to the top. If it's a lid that comes off and on, the chrysalis can fall, or when the cat is getting ready to pupate, the disruption can kill him. When I first started raising cats, I used a big basket that had a handle. I tied Tulle all around the basket and most of the time the cats crawled up the handle and pupated there.

Here's the basket, but these had pupated on a leaf.

What a neat picture Fly!!!!

I use a collapsible fabric dog crate, Lily. It has mesh windows on two sides and a zippered mesh door on one end. It would be MORE helpful if the back end had a mesh zippered door too, but it doesn't. Inside it, I have my little cats on their parsley (I'm raising BST's), which is stuck into floral foam kept soaked with water. To keep them from falling into the wet foam, I fit a large piece of waxed paper over the top of the plastic ziploc container that the foam is in. I make little holes in the waxed paper to stick the parsley in. The little guys like to pupate right on the mesh, and so far, none of them have pupated on the mesh door, for which I'm grateful, because it would make zipping open the door difficult!

these are my little guys, getting bigger, on their parsley pots, within the crate. I put in some old sticks of dill but they weren't too interested in climbing them, but they do like the plantstand to pupate on.

I had a different versiion of your hornworm. These green tomato hornworms were all over my tomato plants, which I didn't mind so much because my tomatoes weren't that great, but they also chewed the dickens out of my brugmansias; that didn't make me very happy!! They do eventually turn into the neat Sphinx Moth though, so you can't get too mad at them! The cardinals seemed to like them also; one day I saw a cardinal snip the head off one on my brugs and then he just left the body there, kind of a waste!
Your guy is really cute, that's the first one I've seen of that variety!!

Nice going Lily!
Monarchs and Tersas! Good job!

debnes

Ooooh ya'll I'm so excited, Thea; where can I find such nice basket with zipper thingy for the cats.? I'd love to have some of those to raise them with. They're room to give them plenty of room to grow. :-)
Thanks much.
Kim

Thea- I LOVE that picture! That guy is neat looking.

Kim- I've gotten good Cat cages at LiveMonarch.org here's the link...

http://www.livemonarch.com/store.php

Adrienne

Hey Kim! We found them at WalMart, back in CT, when we were moving to SC last September. We had 4 kitties to transport by car, so we put two kitties in each crate. The carriers come flat, in a package; when you're ready to set them up you have to be careful because they open up with a snap. My hubby learned that with the first one, it bonked him pretty good on the nose! He opened the second packaged crate VERY carefully!! We hadn't used them since we drove down here with the kitties last year, and we could never fold them back up, so they were sitting in the attic when I decided to try them out for my butterflies. I'm pretty happy with them! Check at WalMart's pet section, maybe you'll find one!! They're easy to clean, with a damp cloth, though they will stain (which I don't care about) when the cats do their last "flush-out" of green gunk.

Woohooo, I'm going shopping tomorrow at Wally World, and the website is informative, I may as well order something there. Thanks both for being so much help. I'll keep y'all posted.
Kim

Lately, I've been looking for one of those big mesh hampers. The places that used to have them don't carry them around here anymore. An extra one would really come in handy since I'm in cat overload and some of the Monarchs and Queens are pupating again. I bet those first cats above were Monarchs! And that second one looked kind of space alien-ish...cool!

It seems like my BST cat. is in the transitional phase of pupating. It's stopped eaten! Where as the tersa is munching an entire small branch of my Pentas over night. Hungry little one! lol, I'm getting ready to get it another meal serving this morning.

This is my Monarch munching away at the milkweed's leaves this morning. :-) It's eating, but at a slower pace compared to that of the tersa's ravenous appetite!

...and the big guy!

Just a short note; the two cats. are doing just fine. At time, they rest from eating, activity hasn't ceased yet. I'm watching them closely, make sure they have enough of their share of food. The Tersa seems it gains in size. lol, it's so much bigger than the BST cat.

Oh no! I did something wrong? My BST is not moving! Motionless on the moist towel in the jar. What could have gone wrong?

Don't panic yet. It may be about to instar.

Actually, is it a large cat? If so, has it kinda scrunched up to make itself shorter and fatter? If that's the case, it may be ready to pupate.

Whew!!! I'm going to take in a deep breath! Thanks Lily.
Kim

This is a small one, well smaller than the Tersa Phinx cat, it curls up in "c" like position on the moist towel. Should I try to remove the damp towel with a some branches or something?

gosh, maybe someone else will come along who knows better than I!!! But, I'd say remove the damp paper towel, and see if it doesn't do better. Are you using the paper towel to keep the plants fresh? If so, wrap the paper towel up in foil -- that's what others on here do. I don't think cats need any kind of moisture because they get all the water they need from the plants when they eat them.

Thanks Lily, I'll clean that out and give it a "fresh" start, with clean bedding. lol.

It looks like that one is trying to pupate, they do the 'J'. Try not to disturb him, it can kill him.

Is the paper towel in the bottom? It shouldn't be wet, it can get bacteria from all the frass that falls.

Well, if it's pupating it won't be "awake" for a while? I removed it from the damp environment into a dry clean bed with a twig in there. I hope I didn't hurt it. :(

At the mean time the Tersa phinx cat. is working away on its branch of Pentas.

I always panic too, Kim, when one stops moving. Has he been growing, that you can see? I've had a couple that didn't eat much, and didn't grow at all, and they did finally die; it broke my heart, but I guess that was what was meant to be. You can't save them all!!! I use a tupperware-like container, put moist floral foam in it, then put a piece of wax paper over the top to overlap the sides. I put an elastic around the whole top to hold the wax paper around the sides. Then I poke holes in the paper to insert the parsley. That way, you can dump the frass easily off the top, and it stays dry and clean. Are you washing your parsley really good before you give it to them? Try not to panic, sometimes they're just resting when they're still. Your sphinx cat is a beauty!!! I couldn't believe my hornworm cats, they decimated my tomato plants and then went to work on my brugs; those cats got HUGE!!! They're little piggies!!!!! Good luck Kim, you're doing great!

Thea; the BST didn't grow any in size that I can tell. I'm a little concern because it looks dehydrated and limp. Just before I went to bed last night it was in a "J" form upside down on the milkweek leave that it was working on. This morning I found it on the bottom on top of the damp paper towel. I didn't eat but a couple of leaves of the branch that I put it in there several days ago. Maybe it wasn't meant to be?
We've alot of birds apparently migrating South? What are those woblers (?) that stay low to the ground to feed? They're all over the garden. There aren't much chances for these little fellas outside. Sigh!

Maybe warblers? We just moved to SC from CT last September, so I'm not familiar with all the southern birdies and migrating habits. I know the cardinals love the little BST's, they do quite a number on their population, that's what started me bringing the little cats inside! I only have a couple of scraggly parsley plants left in my garden, and darned if I didn't find another couple of BST cats out there this afternoon!! I'm not seeing as many wasps as I did a few weeks ago; they were TERRIBLE this summer, all over my dill, which the cats love, so I think the wasps killed a lot of them.
The sign that I look for when I think a cat is about done with eating and wants to get on with pupating is this: they flush out their little systems with a liquidy green poo, not the neat little round pellets they expel all during their cat growth. After they do this, they won't eat anymore, and they usually start wandering around the crate, looking for a place to settle down and pupate. If you see that liquid poo splat, then you can pretty much know that systems are still go, and things are proceeding as they should.

I don't know about this one, I saw some thing greenish liquid, but very little. But the color is of a dull, lifeless color of my mostly greenish cat. :(

Oh dear, he doesn't look good. It's awful to lose one, but you look thru the butterfly forum and you'll see we've all had the experience! It makes you feel so bad, but you've got to realize, you've done your best, and just go on with your other cats! I was so excited with the first batch I brought in, and they got fat and did their big poo and j'd and turned into chrysalids. I was thrilled!!! But that was the end of July, and guess what? Only one of that group eclosed, and I've still got the remaining chrysalids, and I don't have a clue why none of them eclosed!!! They're still hanging there, and it torments me everyday, I'm wondering whether I should just ditch them or if I should still hope that they're just hibernating and will come out next spring or something? I don't know what to do!!!! Being a butterfly stepmom is a real tough job!!!! But that first one you let go, when he/she flies off, you feel SO happy!!!! Thank goodness, I've taken in a bunch more cats since my first batch and I've had 22 successful eclosures. So I can tell you, don't give up Kim!!!

Thanks Thea, for the encouragement. I'll hang tough with my endeavor, and keep on trying. Read and research more. I hope I'll be a good stepmom to these little fellas some days.
Kim