Does Anyone Raise Monarch Butterflies?

[TillinWithMyPeeps]

I don't now, but I'm interested in starting. If anyone else would like to try their hand at raising them, or, if anyone has any advice on raising them, this is the thread for you!

I am very interested in any information about finding and collecting the eggs.

Any stories are appreciated as well!

 

[monarc23]

Egg:

Hatched on day 3 I think it was:

day two (two days old):

Five days old:

Day six:

Day seven:

eight days old:

Day ten:

eleven days old:

day 13 (the sock used to keep a "lid" on the jar that the caterpillar is in is now the caterpillars cacooning area---I had the leaf leaning on the sock so that the caterpillar could climb up to the top and attach itself to the sock):

I delicately pulled the sock out and thumbtacked it to my wall sheding off it's skin:

Two dots and slit show it's a female:

Day fourteen:

day fifteen I think, you can see wing lines, and the yellow dots turned golden:

not sure what day but very soon after day 15.... you can see the colors:

Always seem to pop out early morning:

Drying wings.... what's going on is the butterfly is pumping fluid from it's abdomen (see how it's swollen) into it's wings via the black viens....the viens are swollen at this point....and once they look pencil thin and the abdomen doesnt look so plump and the butterfly starts flapping its wings more its almost time to release!

Right before she flew off, monarchs wings are very durable...writing on them does not harm them...nor does touching them just so you are delicate...their scales do not come off as easily as other butterflies "dust" does...because monarchs are meant to live for several MONTHS and migrate:

i have a video of her release somewehre but it's hard to see her take off....i hope she made it to florida or Mexico!

How to find eggs:

Visit sides of the roads or fields where you will find milkweed, flip the leafs over and look for the egg.....the female lays ONE egg per leaf normally only one egg per plant as well. I pull the leaf where the egg is off, then I take a ziplock baggie and collect more leafs and I place the eating leaves in teh freezer. The leaf witht eh egg on it I put in a jar standing up leaning against the side, then I take a sock and cover the top of the jar....this way it's aerated, and also so the caterpillar cannot escape...though it normally doesnt even move an inch away from it's egg spot for the first day....

they hatch usually after 3 days....the egg will turn dark before it hatches...you may not even notice that part though

After it hatches i'd leave it on the leaf for the first few days until it's big enough to move to another leaf. I dont move the caterpillar until the leaf it hatched on is wilted..then I remove it DELICATELY to a new leaf (one fo the freezer leafs if you're not right by a milkweed area). And put it back in teh jar with it's leaf soon it will start eating

it will GROW FAST...... once its about 10 days old make sure that the sock is always easily accessable to the caterpillar (make sure that the leaf is leaning on the sock so it can climb up when it's ready to pupate...).

Once it attaches to the sock upside down, i slowly take it out and hang it up somewhere, and let it morph the rest of the way... and soon it hatches....however you can leave it in the jar if you're not good at watching it....as a cat can kill it. Please release them once they are ready... they live so long and have a lot of work to do once you release them

 

[amamaofmany]

What gorgeous pictures! Thank you for posting those.

My brother in law had a lot of milkweed beside his house & eventually got some monarch caterpillars on them. We were at the house when one opened up its wings for the first time, and it was really cool to watch it!

I took a lot of the fluff & seed out of his milkweed plants, planted them and had one plant growing beside my house last year. We didn't have a monarch lay eggs on it, but we had cute red milkweed bugs and a very hairy caterpillar that was striped much like a monarch but clearly was not one. We thought of it as our 'practice' butterfly!

We have 6 milkweed plants coming up this year - so maybe we'll luck out and have one attract a monarch!

 

[halo]

Incredible pictures and information. Ive been buying milkweed plants, and have probably 2 dozen nice sized plants right now. The monarchs will start showing up in a few months, and their babies are voracious. They eat the plants down to nothing. Its so cool to see the babies munching away on the plants, and then to find their coccoons hanging in the most interesting and surprising places.

Great job with the pics, thanks for posting them.

 

[Boyd]

Monarc, glad you responded because I found you on myspace once by accident and saw the BAJILLION pics and the play by play you have for yer flutterflies

I was stressin trying to figure out how I ran across you.

 

[monarc23]

Quote:

flutterflies i like that

 

[TillinWithMyPeeps]

I found two Monarch eggs today on the milkweed plants!

I cut off the section of the leaves that they were in, and put them, and a couple of other leaves in an enclosure.

 

[Whispering Winds]

I just want you to know this is one of the prettiest and tear-forming picture tour I have ever seen. I love butterflies and I worry about them and all the chemical sprays the farmers use. I use to see bunches when I was a kid, but not so much anymore. Where do you get the eggs or how do you find the supplies to do it? I would love to try it.

 

[Ducklove334]

thats so cool!

I found a cacoon thingy once, I think it was a monarch, the butterfly came out about a week after I had it, but it had something wrong with it, it didn't dry it's wings right, and they got all torn to shreds, then it died

don't monarch butterflies live for several years?

in school we watched this thing that said they lived for 3 or 4 years O_O

 

[EweSheep]

Cool!

It never cease to amaze me how far they have to go to get to Mexico. How in the world do they know WHERE to go?????????