Customer Reviews

Fascinations GreenEarth Butterfly Kit

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm an adult and I'm struggling. I can't imagine what this would be like for a kid. I had over 200 hatchlings. I'm down to about 60 at first molt. They eat wingless fruit flies. These may/may not be sent with the mantises and there may/may not be an extra charge. Whether you get them or buy them, the supply is woefully inadequate. I started buying them at PetCo where 20 live flies are $[...]. The mantises can eat three flies a day each. I then paid $[...] for stock, growth medium, and breeding chambers to grow the flies - which take up to a month to produce a new generation of flies, and that's turned out to be another worthless, expensive nightmare. Fruit flies can eat fruit - but only when it's rotten. Rotten fruit stinks and gets moldy. Both flies and mantises can die from that. The mantises need to be indoors where it's warm, as do the flies so you can't just put the parts that stink outdoors. The live food that these guys need, and the food that the food needs, is a whole level of complexity and expense you may not be ready for. Finally, it is suggested that you separate the mantises into their own little mantis condos since they eat each other - especially if you don't have and abundance of other food for them to eat. I was fortunate to find small plastic jars. That still leaves me cleaning, adding a water source, and adding flies to dozens of containers. I spent nearly four hours Friday night cleaning everybody up and swapping out the fruit I've been using for the flies. A horse would be less work! You can treat this casually and basically kill all your mantises, and I suppose that would be a learning experience. If you want to come out of this with happy, healthy, full grown mantises, even a couple, you're going to pay a lot of money and do a lot of work. You may want to try the butterflies!

This toy is a great idea! Though very costly for what you get (mostly just a square netting with a few cheap accessories! You must buy the eggs separately - we only had 5 babies hatch - and after 3 days only 1 is alive! My son loved it when they hatched, but he is VERY disappointed he only has one left - and he is assuming that one will die quickly too! We read lots of extra information on how to keep them alive - but not much worked! It might be better to keep them in their natural habitat!

You have to pay extra for the critters! I think the cost of the kit, toy, etc. is even over priced! Then to pay more for the insects is a rip off!! Someone is sure making money on this one!

I purchased this for my 5 year old Grandson so he can learn how bugs are hatched and born. He was so Happy when the mantis started to come out of there nest. This also was a good learning experience for him, took it to his classroom for show and tell. Since they are not allowed to take toys for show and tell and told the classroom about praying mantis
along with some printed coloring praying mantis for all the classroom.

My Nephew was very excited about this gift, but finding Praying Mantis eggs was very difficult. I couldn't figure out how to order them on the vendor web-site (I don't think they have them...go figure, sell the kit but no eggs or a suggestion as to where to get them), but I did find them at another vendor. They are on back order until February.
So, don't buy this as a gift if it is the only present you buy. My Nephew doesn't mind waiting because I "packaged" it as something to look forward to.

My boys and I had so much fun watching our caterpillars grow. The plastic top is really nice to look through and is much easier to see through then a mesh net. We had 4 caterpillars in there at one time and they all grew nicely and became beautiful butterflies. We love this product!

The box "Butterfly Kit - Raise your own live butterflies Watch and learn about life cycles!" is false advertising. It contained only the habitat NO LIVE material! Worse than that, the kit is useless--the zipper doesn't work at all!Fascinations GreenEarth Butterfly Kit

My daughter received this kit (bought from amazon.com) for Christmas. Since I bought a kit for my nephew as well, it was a different brand. I expected to find a card enclosed to get the eggs for the kit. No such luck. The minimum price for 5 larvae is an additional $12! I know the kit I bought clearly stated that it included a card to send off for your larvae and there would be an additional $5 processing fee. I paid LESS for that kit than my mother in law paid for THIS kit! I suggest you buy the "Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden" Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden instead. They are upfront about extra costs.
All this kit comes with is a mesh container, tweezers, a magnafying glass, and an eye dropper.
So right now, she has not actually USED this kit, we are looking to see if we can find the eggs cheaper elsewhere, I prefer not to give "green earth" more money. It would have been different if it was listed in the description about the additional cost being as much as the kit itself!

I wish I had read the reviews here first!! For the price, I thought the butterfly garden would be a complete package. It's not. Plan on spending even more money to get the caterpillars to grow into butterflies. And plan on getting your own food to feed them through the process. If you have a collapsable laundry basket, just use that. That's all you get for the price. On the plus side, the included black-n-white booklet about butterflies is kind of interesting. That part's worth about 50 cents.

The product information on the box of the butterfly kits is misleading. The contents of the kit lists a coupon for live caterpillars. But when you open the box there is not a coupon, only an order form to purchase caterpillars at an additional charge. There are other companies that sell kits shipped with live caterpillars for a lower price. When contacting the maker of the product, customer service representatives were not at all willing to resolve the issue. They offered no explanation for the deception on the box and refused to work with me.