Brady Ball of Ladoga frequently captures images of the butterflies on his property
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Saturday, August 18, 2018 4:00 AM
There are over 200,000 Certified Wildlife Habitats in the United States today. Many of these habitats have been created by folks like Brady and Shelly Ball of Ladoga. Brady and Shelly Ball began their wildlife journey after taking Indiana Master Naturalist class.
Brady said they had both have always had a love for wildlife and planting flowers. About five years ago, the couple began to prepare their property to meet all of the wildlife habitat certification standards. Ball says the main criteria for a certified habitat revolve around providing food, water, shelter, and places to raise young
Brady inherited his love of wildlife and particularly a love of butterflies from his mother.
“About 20 years ago, my mother had moved to Florida and started working at a nursery. She got really into this butterfly stuff and started raising them. I learned a lot from her. A few years ago, I started raising butterfly caterpillars and when they become a butterfly I release them. It takes about seven to ten days,” he Ball.
“Monarch butterflies have to have milkweed to be able to survive because that's what their caterpillars eat . . . that's the only thing they will eat” said Ball. Telling us, milkweed is harder for them to find in Indiana because of farms and residential areas, “people building houses and stuff,” said Ball.
Brady Shelly, started their habitat with the planting of a single milkweed plant.