Present similar to breeding caterpillars?

[Ohdoleavemealone]

I thought this would be a great present for DD but apparently you cannot get the caterpillars until March.
DD and I will have forgotten about the present by then so I am looking for something similar. Not spider monkeys or plants though.
Does such a ting exist?

I've no good advice but find it quite amusing that you'd think an insect larvae that feeds on plants would thrive in mid-winter

A bug viewer and some books on what animals/insects do during each season?

What are you wanting to achieve?
Show her about reproduction and circle of life?
Get her to care for a pet?
Is it the whole butterfly emerging from chrysalis thing?
Has she an affinity for insects?

Stick insects? Though no idea if you can get them in a pet shop!
Ant farm?

Worms? www.hobbycraft.co.uk/my-living-world-worm-kit/583064-1000

Can you get some broccoli seeds, plant them in the spring (or some you can start off in a cool place now, and they grow really slowly over winter) Then plant them out next year, and you will either end up with broccoli or you will have ravaged, caterpillar-eaten stumps. Win-win.

A nature journal?
Nature origami - www.amazon.co.uk/National-Trust-Origami-Clover-Robin/dp/1788002458/ref=asc_df_1788002458/?hvlocphy=1006868&linkCode=df0&hvptwo&psc=1&psc=1&hvnetw=g&hvadid=310783995501&hvpone&hvlocint&th=1&hvpos&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl&hvqmt&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&hvtargid=pla-524238227489&hvrand=16477075065797788358
seeds - start with cress!
A wormery

Books about nature and life cycles
A voucher for a day at a zoo

yes I agree with @AdamRyan how about a wormery?

I've just bought a load of worms for our composter outside :)

A see through wormery would be amazing i think!

You can get spiders at the moment, loads of them in our house.
They were free.
No litter tray or anything required and they feed themselves.
Very playful, they like to hide and then suddenly jump out and startle you - funny little devils!

You can have all of ours.

Sea monkeys. We gave our DD some for Easter and they are still going strong

A mini ant farm?

Ant farm, worm farm, sea monkeys, triops?

You can buy stick insects on eBay. My son had some when he was about 8 and they sparked an interest in biology. He now wants to study microbiology at university.
Stick insects are easy to keep and cheap to feed.(ours ate privet, ivy and brambles iirc).

Indian stick insects. My 2 have 10 each. They shed their skins and can reproduce without a male.

If you live in the West Midlands or Gloucestershire, you can have some eggs for free from me. 💁🏻‍♀️

Triopts are interesting , bigger than SeaMonkeys , but you need to keep a careful eye on the water .
We ended up with three huge ones ( we put them into a bigger tank , the one you get in the kit is tiny)
They're interesting when they shed the skin .
One of our ate the other

For caterpillers , Nastursiam seeds .
I grew some beauties this year , started early in the mini greenhouse . Feed if you want leaves , don't feed if you want flowers .
We had loads of Cabbage Whites, but not till end July/early August

Stick insects are great but bear in mind that, unlike caterpillars, they are there to stay. DD's kept reproducing and we had endless tiny stick insects which kept escaping when we cleaned the cage.

@JumperandJacket

Stick insects are great but bear in mind that, unlike caterpillars, they are there to stay. DD's kept reproducing and we had endless tiny stick insects which kept escaping when we cleaned the cage.

This is true. I clean ours out weekly and flush the eggs. 😂

We did caterpillars his summer and my son loved it. He asked for more and I forgot to order in time, but I was able to order some that will be delivered next year- March I think.
Is that an option? I know you said about forgetting, but if you pre-order you wont forget to do them, they'll arrive when the season is right and you do get an e-mail reminding you they are on their way.

I don't know what time of year you do them, but my friend hatched stick insects with her children which they enjoyed.

@Ohdoleavemealone

I thought this would be a great present for DD but apparently you cannot get the caterpillars until March. DD and I will have forgotten about the present by then so I am looking for something similar. Not spider monkeys or plants though. Does such a ting exist?

SPIDER monkeys

Im going to hazard a guess you meant SEA monkeys as a spider monkey would be an insane gift.

I would suggest Triops or pond/ramshorn snails but both are similar to see monkey honestly.

@70isaLimitNotaTarget

Triopts are interesting , bigger than SeaMonkeys , but you need to keep a careful eye on the water . We ended up with three huge ones ( we put them into a bigger tank , the one you get in the kit is tiny) They're interesting when they shed the skin . One of our ate the other

For caterpillers , Nastursiam seeds .
I grew some beauties this year , started early in the mini greenhouse . Feed if you want leaves , don't feed if you want flowers .
We had loads of Cabbage Whites, but not till end July/early August

They all eat the others, that's how they grow you start with hundreds and they're supposed to eat each other until you have one massive one left... mine never did, they stayed tiny and plentiful.

They just constantly buried stuff, I assumed egg casing but I guess it could be shedding... it would float on top they would grab it, swim down, dig, bury it and repete on a never-ending cycle.

The one random SeaMonkey that somehow was in their tank too (god only knows how as we didn't have sea monkeys, guess it was in the egg packet) did vanish though.

You could set up a snail habitat. We did this quite often - the great thing is you can just liberate them when you go on holiday and then restock when you get home. Normal garden snails, not weird big African ones obviously.

We made a woodlouse habitat once after finding a 'pregnant' female - watched the tiny little ones grow.

Insect lore is a good website for this kind of thing, they do stick 8n sects, silk worms m ladybirds, African snails, wormeries

www.insectlore.co.uk/living-twig-stick-insect-kit.html

Erm, you do realise that caterpillars, as such, don't actually breed? Butterflies lay eggs that hatch into caterpillars...

Just googled triops. Shudder. They look like something from a horror film that would crawl up your nose or down your throat (or any other bodily opening) and carry on growing until they went all John Hurt ....

Op go on world wide butterfly .co.uk. I’m guessing you’ve been looking at the general butterfly kits aimed at children who just sell painted lady’s which are out of season. I buy eggs/caterpillars off wwb, they still have about 50 species available, most requiring the same standard set up. Two things to consider when picking which species is what do they eat (you need to be able to get hold of their food), and are they native (can they be released or do you have to keep them). I’d consider buying her silk worms. They turn into these absolutely adorable moths, and you can actually buy commercially made food for them.

What about a praying mantis? My exotics shop sells beautiful orchid ones?
Have you considered giant snails? I think they're super cute.
Or if you wanted something a bit different, I know someone who keeps leeches in fancy glass enclosures. They feed them blood from the butchers.

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

You can get spiders at the moment, loads of them in our house. They were free. No litter tray or anything required and they feed themselves. Very playful, they like to hide and then suddenly jump out and startle you - funny little devils!

You can have all of ours.

🤣 op can have mine too