Feline health is all about maintenance. This article will give you three easy steps for keeping your cat(s) happy and healthy on a long-term basis.

Cats are independent creatures in many ways. If you follow a few simple guidelines your feline friends will enjoy maximum health and a very long life.

Use the information below to formulate your own feline health care plan:

Feline Health Tip #1 Choosing The Right Food

It’s critical that you feed your cats a high quality food product. You might save money by going with a dollar store brand of cat food, but the end result will be poor health and possible even complications.

A quality food will ensure optimal feline health by providing the proper nutrition. A good product like Science Diet, Iams, or Eukanuba will boost your cat’s energy levels, give them a healthy, shiny coat, and support a strong digestive system.

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The butterfly is also a symbol of woman’s delicacy. It can serve as a reminder to treat her with gentleness. In Japan, a beautiful woman wearing a kimono is often compared to a butterfly.

In Pre-Hispanic, Mexican Indian culture, the butterfly is one of the symbolic representatives of Tlaloc, god of rain. The fantastic stone heads that jut out from the bas-relief background of the pyramid of Quetzacoatl are carved in the same spirit (human form to geometric forms) although on a smaller scale. They represent symbolic combinations, alternately of jaguars and snakes, and of the stylized features of the rain god and the butterfly, which was considered one of his symbolic representatives.

Butterflies symbolize witches and fairies, but they also symbolize the soul of witches. Both butterflies and witches have the ability to change their form; butterflies change in the course of their development, witches allegedly can change at will. The Serbians look on the butterfly as the soul of a witch and believe if they can find her body and turn it around while she is asleep, the soul will not be able to find her mouth and reenter, and the witch will probably die. Probably, this concept of the soul explains why many medieval angels have butterfly wings rather than those of a bird

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Metamorphosis of butterflies and moths is one of the mysteries of Nature. The ability of these insects to change from the crawling caterpillar to the flying adult is almost magical. Many people are so awe inspired by the metamorphosis that they believe that butterflies and moths could never have evolved over millions of years without a God behind it.

The butterfly exists in four distinct forms. Some consider that so do we: The fertilized egg is planted in our mother’s womb. From our day of birth we are like the caterpillar which can only eat and creep along. At death we are like the dormant pupa in its chrysalis. After that, our consciousness emerges from the cast off body, and some see in this the emergence of the butterfly. Therefore, the butterfly is symbolic of rebirth after death.

For Christians, the butterfly’s three steps of metamorphosis — as caterpillar, pupa and then winged insect — are reminiscent of spiritual transformation.

The caterpillar’s incessant crawling and chewing reminds us of normal earthly life where people are often wholly preoccupied with physical needs. The chrysalis (cocoon) resembles a tomb and empty, can suggest the empty shroud left behind by Jesus. Therefore, a butterfly represents the resurrection into a new condition of life that is free of any material concerns.

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Plant your butterfly garden in a sunny location (5-6 hours each day), but sheltered from the winds. Butterflies need the sun to warm themselves, but they won’t want to feed in an area where they are constantly fighting the wind to stay on the plants. Afternoon sun will not only bring in lots of butterflies, but will provide glorious light for viewing and photographing them. It’s a plus if you can watch from your kitchen or living room window. Your location should be calm and relatively undisturbed – meaning only occasional visits by humans. the more natural the area the greater the number and diversity of butterflies attracted.

Provide cover and shelter such as broad-leaved trees, shrubs, and log piles. You also want to have several landing pads or sunbathing perches in open and sunny areas throughout the garden. Butterflies rely to a large degree on thermal heating and sunbathe in these open spots. These are most often a variety of large varied sizes of stones that can be used for decorative purposes as well.

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Butterflies start life as eggs laid on plants. The egg consists of an outer casing, or chorion, inside which is the female’s fertilized ovum. There is always a minute opening, the micropyle, which is visible as a small pit at the top of some eggs.

This structure allows the male sperm to fertilize the egg and probably allows the developing embryo to breathe. Sometimes eggs are laid singly, at other times they may be in bunches

The eggs take a variable amount of time to hatch; indeed some butterflies remain as eggs through the winter, only hatching when the warmth of spring arrives. I guess they are less likely to be eaten when very small and easy to miss. Usually it takes about 10 days for an egg to hatch. There is an easy exit for the tiny first caterpillar to escape from the confines of its egg.

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Butterflies need water just like we do. Keep a mud puddle damp in a sunny location, or fill a bucket with sand and enough water to make the sand moist. Periodically saturate the sand to keep it moist. You can also bury the bucket in the ground for aesthetic purposes and provide access to it by surrounding it with some small rocks. Male butterflies appreciate a patch of wet sand or dirt. They sip salts and other minerals from the sand, a behavior known as “puddling”. The minerals are passed on in a sperm packet during mating, to enrich the eggs.

In you want to include the use of butterflies in your landscape you will need to create a safety zone for your butterflies to feel safe. Butterflies frequent habitual zones, where they feel safe and where areas of the landscape meet with the tree lines.Creating your butterfly gardens near or around trees will help in attracting even more of these graceful creatures to your gardens. You should also consider hedges; groups of small trees or shrubs; or walls, fences, trellises covered with vines.

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