Two reasons to transfer caterpillars to fresh food shortly after hatching...
- If the plant they are on is drying out, the caterpillars may become trapped in curled-up leaves.
- If there are many eggs per leaf, the caterpillars may eat each other.
When working with tiny things, use good light--including a small, bright flashlight and a hand magnifier.
Brace your forearms or wrists on the edge of the table as you work, to steady your hands.
to pick them up, use a tiny watercolor brush, or a 1" long triangle of paper towel. Caterpillars hang on most firmly with their pair of rear legs. You can get them to loosen their grip by tickling their rear with the brush.
Put them on the edge of a leaf on the new plant. You can let them crawl off your brush on their own (safer) or brush them gently onto the new leaf (faster).
You may drop some caterpillars, so work over a clean table, preferably spread with a few sheets of blank white paper. This will make dropped caterpillars easy to find.
Important: Caterpillars spin a lifeline of silk as you transfer them. It's attached to the leaf they are on--so as you transfer, they might suddenly be yanked off your brush and back toward the leaf they were on.
When you place them on the fresh leaf, their silk line may be attached to your brush. As you pull the brush away from the new leaf, they might be yanked away. So, before you withdraw the brush from the new leaf, move your brush in a circle around the leaf. In other words, wrap the invisible silk line around the leaf before you withdraw your brush.
Atfer transferring each caterpillar, make a mark on a scratch pad. This gives you a count of caterpillars on each new plant. Tape the count to the jar. Next time you transfer to fresh food, you will know how many caterpillars to look for.
The best food for tiny caterpillars is a tender shoot of milkweed--the top of a plant--with about 6 leaves. Place the stem in a small jar of water with a metal lid with a hole in the lid. This prevents caterpillars from falling into the water. Place the jar on a saucer of water to keep out spiders (medium to large caterpillars are safe from spiders). Mist the plant several times a day.
Your fresh food should last 3-4 days before it needs renewing with a larger milkweed stem with more leaves. Be sure to give fresh food before the leaves curl up.