Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Who's eating our sassafrass tree?


I've been seeing this on the leaves of the sassafras tree by the driveway but due to a busy weekend (yardsale! rain! husband away for the weekend!) haven't had a moment to really check it out until today.

Something had obviously been nibbling.  Excited to find out what, I started looking on the underside of the chewed leaves.


And found this.  A dead stick? No, but it mimics one.  Best I can tell it's a purplish-brown looper.


Another looper caterpiller, along with this little fuzzy one we haven't been able to identify.


After inspecting them for awhile, we set up a tiny terrarium.


I think this is just a holding pen.  I'm thinking of setting up a 5 gallon tank with plantings so we can raise a couple of different varieties of  butterflies and moths at once in the house while supplying different food sources for each.

Also today I moved the young birds that were left out of the garden coop and into the main chicken yard, managed to lose a pheasant, moved a hen with chicks back to the main coop and cleaned the garden pen in preparation for installing the 2 remaining ducks out there tomorrow.  However, I've also pulled my lower back quite badly so we'll see how I feel in the morning.

2 comments:

  1. I hope your back improves soon, it's no fun with a bad back, a couple of young children and a home to run.

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    1. No it's certainly not as I'm learning. Thanks for the well wishes.

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