Aliwal Manor residents delight in bringing up beautiful butterflies
Aliwal Manor’s Lifestyle Coordinator, Sarah, recently asked the residents if for a new project, they would like to experience an unforgettable opportunity to watch caterpillars change into chrysalides and then emerge as beautiful butterflies. There was a very resounding yes across the board to this idea. Sarah explained to the residents that they would be able to raise and feed their very own butterflies and then release them into the wild.
The residents and team members were very excited when the caterpillars arrived at Aliwal Manor. Five of them arrived in a clear plastic cup with all of the nutritious food they would need. The transformation process from caterpillar to adult butterfly was estimated to take about three to five weeks and everyone was looking forward to seeing them start to take flight.
Residents placed the cup in a safe place away from direct sunlight. After about eight days, the caterpillars started to hang upside down and harden into chrysalides. The caterpillars remained in the cup and spun silk to from their shell, growing around 10 times their original size.
Once the chrysalides had hardened, Sarah gently moved them to the larger pop-up butterfly habitat that had arrived with the caterpillars. Everyone really enjoyed watching the whole process and every day the residents eagerly went to go and see what changes had happened. It took another eight days at this point for them to complete their transformation into adult butterflies.
Once they had all changed into butterflies everyone had a last look and said their goodbyes. Residents Barbara and Thelma carefully helped to release the butterflies by gently coaxing them out of their pop up habitat and into the garden.
It had been a very intriguing process to watch for the residents and the butterfly process had started many stimulating conversations throughout the previous weeks.
This is one activity that Aliwal Manor can definitely see becoming a regular fixture on the activity schedule. Residents said they will look out for the butterflies on sunny days to see if they come into back into Aliwal’s garden to visit them.