User:LindaRogers52

Butterfly Farming and Nigel Venters

Butterfly farming is a relatively little-known profession. Yet, with some courage, perseverance and dedicated study, a person can very easily be gainfully employed raising butterflies for a living! There are many ways a person can earn and income by raising butterflies. Butterfly livestock (like the eggs and the pupae or chrysalis) can be sold to butterfly exhibits all over the world. Butterfly livestock in educational raising kits (larvae with instant diet in a raising container) can be assembled and shipped to schools for children to witness the exciting metamorphosis first hand! There are some butterfly professionals that make a good living taking butterfly livestock and materials to schools for educational presentations. Others raise butterflies and sell them to be released at ceremonial events, such as weddings, parties, funerals and commemorative gatherings. It is an exciting business - enjoyable, fascinating and wonderful to see people connect with butterflies - nature - and the world - with your hand-raised livestock!

A butterfly farming business set up can be small, using one spare bedroom in a house or apartment with one or two people doing the work. Or, the venture can be large, utilizing several acres, greenhouses and workers. Many people choose to start up small and try it out first. Once a person has experienced raising a few batches of butterflies from egg, to larvae, then pupae and finally the adult butterfly... then there will be a feel for what kind of business they'd like to have. The small start-up can be accomplished quickly and with little expense. This entails buying some livestock, containers and instant diet or growing host plant for the larvae to eat. The best way to learn how to raise butterflies is to purchase how-to instructions from a very knowledgeable teacher.

There are many people in the world that are expert and proficient in raising butterflies. However, there is one man in the world that has not only been raising butterflies for 60 years, but he's also taught people all over the world, for decades, how to raise hundreds of different butterfly species. This is NIGEL VENTERS. Nigel has lived all over the world and has just recently relocated back to London from Cordoba, Argentina.

Nigel Venters first collected a caterpillar on his way home from school at age 6! This was at a time when most collectors just pinned their butterflies. Nigel wanted to learn more about them, and see them alive.

Now some 60 years later, he is a professional entomologist, who is recognised by most as the World’s leading expert on breeding butterflies. Nigel has several species new to science named after him, but most pride goes to a beautiful, and very large blue butterfly, Charaxes ventersi, which he discovered in Central Africa and is named after him. He developed his first butterfly farm in 1976 in Central Africa, where he lived for 7 years, and hasn’t stopped since.

Nigel spent 4 years in the Sudan, and discovered another butterfly, new to science, (named after his daughter) in a remote and very dangerous region on the border with Southern Sudan and Uganda.

Nigel has travelled to Canada, the US, Central America, spent 4 weeks in the Amazon rainforest, South America, Africa, Europe, the Far East, and Australia working and teaching at commercial butterfly interests.

He is a former board member and officer of an international butterfly raising association, lectures as lead presenter at many conferences. Nigel wrote the first butterfly raising manual and it has been used all over the world to teach people how to raise many species, set up raising operations, build flight cages and prevent disease in livestock. Nigel has written the comprehensive manual, and also other very detailed books on raising butterflies. He also regularly runs butterfly breeding workshops on-line for commercial breeders from around the World. Nigel has consulted with countries and large ventures across the world to design and build butterfly farms and public exhibits. A few of these facilities include the Saudi Arabia Butterfly Exhibit; The Butterfly Conservatory, Costa Rica; El Bosque Nuevo, Costa Rica; Butterfly World Tropical Butterfly Display House, UK; Country Farm Park, Rare Breeds Butterfly Display House, UK; and The Living Rainforest, Ashford, UK.

Nigel is known for his incredible depth of knowledge on hundreds of butterfly species around the world. He is also known for generously sharing this knowledge with anyone interested in learning about butterflies!