Raising Hope for the 2017 Monarch Migration

327 Comments

1. Raise the Migration
   This was my first time raising monarchs indoors and I had a very high success rate thanks to Tony’s wonderful website and lessons learned from my working as an elementary school teacher. Now retired, I volunteer at a seasonal butterfly exhibit in Wheaton, Maryland, zone 7. I began collecting eggs in August and raised 50 butterflies. Only one didn’t form a complete chrysalis and died.

   Count your kiddies: just as when taking children on field trips, I am constantly counting, making sure I don’t lose anyone. Eggs and caterpillars can be easily overlooked when maintaining and cleaning containers. I put tape on the outside of every containers marking them with hash tags to keep track of how many eggs or cats I have. I always accounted for them before I closed each container or cage.

   Sterilize: I sterilized everything, containers, floral tubes, equipment, such as scissors, tweezers, etc. before reusing. Because I raised the cats in my dinning room, I didn’t feel comfortable using bleach and instead use 70% rubbing isopropyl alcohol. I soaked items for ten minutes and sprayed surfaces, then rinsed well with water.

   Relocating butterflies from chrysalis cage to drying-release cage: I moved emerged butterflies once they stopped hanging from their chrysalis shell and began roaming in the net cage. Because their wings are still drying, I didn’t feel comfortable clasping them by the wings as shown on the Christ Church video on Tony’s website. At the butterfly exhibit where I volunteer, the butterflies sometime get caught in the corners of the greenhouse and need rescuing because butterflies can’t fly or move backwards. To relocate them to the drying-release cage I coated my finger with sugar water (butterflies “taste” with their feet) and had them crawl on my finger. I then rested my other hand in front and slightly over the finger with the butterfly (no physical contact with the butterflies except for its feet resting on my finger.) I then carried the butterfly to its drying-release cage. This technique worked every time.

   Weighted containers holding floral tubes of milkweed: I used small cream cheese and larger deli containers, pierced holes on top and filled containers with marbles inside to keep the containers from tipping over when removing and refilling floral tubes.

   Refilling water in floral tubes: I used a 12-gauge needle syringe without the needle to refill water in the floral tubes. This allowed better aim, less water spillage, and no need to remove tubes to refill.

2. I live in Central Illinois and this was my 3rd season raising Monarchs. I had eggs given me starting in late May and started seeing Monarchs in my own yard the 3rd week of July. There were two monarchs laying eggs on my potted tropical milkweed plants at that time and all of a sudden I had over 200 eggs which I collected right after laying. I had to give away 150 eggs to other Monarch raisers in my area because I could not handle them all at the same time. I had 75 cats of my own at that time. I felt really bad about not being able to raise them all but my dining room table was full already. It would have been nice if the females would space out their egg laying, but that’s nature. Next year I will be ready for them as I should have lots of milkweed and am growing a few dozen new tropicals. In my yard the Monarchs seemed to prefer the tropical plants to the common milkweed. 80% of the eggs were laid on the tropical milkweed. The end result of this year is that I released 90 healthy butterflies. Our local group raised over 600 monarchs. Thanks Tony for all your helpful info throughout the growing season.

3. Still releasing. Now it is wet and cold in south Louisiana. Need to cut back milkweed but will wait a couple weeks to make sure any chrysalis have emerged. Cats survived7 inches of snow outdoors . It NEVER snows here. This is one hardy little caterpillar! Too bad many large ones with parasite.

4. Hi Tony. I meant to write this a while ago but here goes. I live in Plymouth Meeting in PA (southeast corner of the state).
   This is my first year to actually raise monarchs. I planted two milkweed plants two years ago for first time and then again this year I added two more. I haven’t seen monarchs in my area for several years or more. This summer I saw on for the first time hanging around my garden and milkweeds. Awesome, it really works to attract the monarchs if you plant the right plants for them. I saw about 8 large caterpillars on the plan around mid Aug. They were there for a few days and they all disappeared. in the course of one afternoon. Several days later I saw tiny caterpillars on the same plants. There were about 12 of them that survived to grow into large caterpillars again (1-1.5 in) . This time took several of them and placed in a covered terrarium and let the others on the plant.

   The ones on the plans gradually started to disappear after a few days . The two I had in cage actually went into chrysalis but not at same time . The first one I got to see actually turn into a butterfly. I’m hooked. I open cage and let it go on its onw when it was ready. I saw it flying around my yard for a few day along with a few other monarchs. So I don’t know if these were ones that were left on the plant or ones from somewhere else in the neighborhood. Before the last one I had in a cage went into chrysalis , it appeared to have died tow different times. It wasn’t moving or eating and no poop after cleaning the cage. I forced a milkweed leaf around its mouth and got some movement. Next thing I know I see it eating like crazy on the leaves I had in the cage. It started to grow very fast and really eat a lot. I was luck to buy another milkweed plant from big nursery that still had a few mature plants. I had just enough leaves before it went into chrysalis.

   This one came out of the cocoon just a day before we left on vacation on 9/30. It had a little trouble flying as part of the one wing was a little malformed. I placed it on a butterfly wee and saw it still there the next day before we left. I doubt it survived but you never know.
   I saw about five monarchs (around the same time) in and about my yard. This is the most monarchs I ever saw in my area.

   So my lessons learned are:
   1) you can never have enough milkweed plants ( I’m buying seeds for several varieties for my area and planting the seed I collected from my plants. I will have multiple spots in my yard wit bunches of milkweed plants as well as in containers.
   2) never give up hope and assume the caterpillar is dead because they are not eating or moving.
   3) this is an all out war to save these magnificent creatures. Several of my neighbors have pest treatments so its a wonder anything can survive. Besides planting milkweed in your yard, I think we all need to starting planting in any wild strip of land or near streams (local native varieties only of course). We also need to get politically involved to promote things that help nature survive loss of habitat and the use of pesticides.
   4) I think you need to grow some in controlled environments like cages to give the best chance of improving overall survival rate.
   5) Use netting over your milkweed plants to try to keep predators out.

   Nature is tenacious but must be given a decent chance. I can’t wait for spring.

   Best of luck to all of the monarch enthusiasts and to you Tony for great 2018 year of the monarch.

   John

   PS ( I purchased one of your books but never got the invite to the Facebook group. Can I get the invite?)

   1. Hi John, thank you for sharing your experience and lessons learned raising forward. There is a link to the facebook group at the bottom of page 3 inside the book…

5. I’m in Winter Springs (just north of Orlando, FL). I started last January and I’ve released at least 85 butterflies (they don’t migrate from here, so I have a full year growing season). I try to follow Tony’s advice as much as possible (thank you sooo much!) and I’d say I had an 80% success rate. Right now I have 21 chrysalis and at least 40 cats (all in cages). They are voracious eaters and Lukas Nursery in Oviedo probably loves me…I’ve purchased at least 200 milkweed plants from them since January. I’m growing them as well but it’s not easy keeping up with all the cats. I cut a 4″ stalk from a chewed-down plant and stick it right in the ground – at least 90% of them grow into a full-sized plant and 100% of the original plants have grown back. Predators include small frogs, wasps, ants and lizards (which is why as soon as I see a cat, I cut off the leaf and put it onto a plant inside the cage). When I see an egg, I follow Tony’s advice and put it on a damp paper towel in a closed plastic container. I keep an eye out for aphids and red bugs; both will suck the life out of a plant. Most important lesson: follow Tony’s advice whenever possible!

   1. Hi Audrey, congrats on a successful season! I just wanted to share that we use a dry paper towel to avoid any mold issues. More info here:

      Bringing in Monarch Eggs

6. I am in south Florida. I have tropical (favorite for butterflies), gigantica (pretty popular) and swamp (have never seen an egg or caterpillar on these) milkweed. A couple nurseries here started carrying gigantica milkweed plants and these have been a lifesaver for me as the leaves are very large (some have grown to 10″x6″) and very thick so feed lots of hungry caterpillars (one lesson learned). My neighbors tree fell on their fence during hurricane Irma and it fell on my largest gigantica plant; luckily they were able to get the fence off of the plant pretty quickly and it is thriving today. The hurricane worried me and I spent days before it combing over leaves trying to rescue caterpillars until my back was aching and I had a huge population to then take care of inside (and my shuttered house always seems to be so dark even when we had electricity). The day after Irma hit, I found 2 caterpillars I had missed outside munching away as if nothing had happened. However all butterflies were gone outside. The monarch population here seems to have rebounded around my small neighborhood due to my raising (and whoever else around that is) but I’ve only seen 2 Florida zebra butterflies since Irma hit and normally I would always see them outside my window in nice weather.

   Another lesson learned was to stop my lawn service from trimming my plants after they stripped one large leaf off of a plant that had 2 chrysalis’ on it (happened early before I was raising them in cages so now if I see a chrysalis outside I’d bring into a cage on my porch).

   Another lesson learned is caterpillars like to crawl up high. My son was trimming branches that contain palm berries off of a palm tree where the branches were as high as our second story roof. They would just crash to the ground where he would carry them over to he trash can to cut up and dispose of them. We were so surprised to find a chrysalis on one of these branches that had just crashed to the ground. I put it in a cage and he successfully eclosed!

   So much thanks to Tony and his great literature and all around helpfulness and support.

7. I live near Albany, NY. We had four milkweed plants that had grown up as weeds next to our house and we were thrilled when we saw a monarch lay her eggs on them. Seeing the hatchlings outdoors and at risk to predation made me very anxious and that’s what got me started raising monarchs indoors.

   Since this was my first year there were a lot of lessons learned! Tony, you are a great teacher and fortunately I avoided many mistakes by following your advice. I am happy to report that I successfully raised six out of seven monarchs (one from an egg), three males and three females, all healthy and all part of the great 2017 monarch migration – the greatest in at least four years, from what we saw in our area.

   Here are the two most important things I learned: 1) food matters. If they don’t look like they’re eating your milkweed, get new milkweed! Think like a caterpillar and pick tasty-looking leaves if you can. 2) don’t worry about the chrysalis falling off – that silk that they attach themselves with forms a very strong bond on whatever it attaches to – whether it’s the screen mesh of the cage or a milkweed leaf. Only after they were done hatching did I get to test it out, and you had to really pull, like pulling a burr out of a dog’s coat, to get it off. So don’t be afraid to unzip the cage to feed the caterpillars, you will not dislodge the chrysalis! When my first guy was getting ready to pupate I threw in several days supply of some nice fresh swamp milkweed, which I had never tried them on, so I would not risk dislodging the chrysalis for the first few days. Rookie mistake. Unfortunately by the time I realized my caterpillars were starving, I had lost one – but fortunately I was able to nurse the others back to health.

   I didn’t have as much luck with the eggs, one got eaten by a newly hatched cat (another learning experience!) and the others failed, I think due to moisture issues. So I have a lot more to learn, or perhaps I’ll wait til the eggs hatch before I harvest them.

   There are a few other things I would like to share. I was worried that my chrysalises were taking so long to mature and it was already mid-September, so I tried an experiment which I think worked. During the day times, I moved the cages to our side porch, which was 5-10 degrees warmer than inside our house, and in the evenings I brought the cages back indoors, where it was warmer. My first couple of butterflies, before I started doing this, took about 16-17 days to eclose, and the next three took only 12-13 days. So, not exactly a perfect science experiment, but I do think that sped up the process.

   Tony had advised me not to worry about the monarchs hatching out late, but I really was worried about the falling temperatures. I needn’t have been (especially this year, which stayed warm very late). On October 7, my husband and I were visiting the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, NY and were AMAZED to see HUNDREDS of migrating monarchs. They had a butterfly garden there, with zinnias, Mexican sunflowers, and some other flowers all in full bloom and the butterflies must have been able to see it from miles away. We have a lot of butterfly-friendly plants in our yard but by that time none of them were in bloom and any butterflies coming through didn’t have much to eat – so next year we are going to put in a lot of zinnias and Mexican sunflowers to support the migration!

   Lastly, I found that my friends on Facebook who really, really loved all my posts about the monarchs. For one of them, I even live-streamed it coming out of the chrysalis! There is so much awful stuff in the news these days, I think people really found the butterfly “news” very soul-restorative. So I encourage people who raise these beautiful butterflies to share, share, share!

   Thank you again, Tony, for sharing your love and knowledge of monarchs and to all the other members of this community!

   1. Hello. I would like to share my results for 2017. I did not start raising Monarch caterpillars until Mid-October is this year. We started with one Tropical Milkweed plant (Asclepius Curassavica) and from that, our first Monarch emerged successfully. We had only experienced raising a Monarch about 12 years ago from a small milkweed plant that my daughter gave to me back then for Mother’s Day (something that she received while on a field trip to our local plant nursery, which also has a Butterfly Encounter exhibit). That plant grew over the years at our previous home and provided a wonderful habitat for many Monarchs in the wild. We moved 18 months ago to a new home and I had been missing seeing daily Monarchs here and there, as I had gotten used to doing at our former home. So, I bought one Milkweed plant back in August this year. After the successful outdoor emergence of one Monarch in early September, we got hit with Hurricane Irma. Our beloved dog had died at the end of August and we had planted the potted Milkweed atop of his grave. But after Hurricane Irma blew through, we thought for sure that it would not have survived the extreme winds which wreaked havoc for almost an entire 24-hour period. We didn’t think the plant had been in the ground long enough to firmness roots that would sustain such strong hurricane winds. To our complete surprise, the plant survived and flourished! Within just a few days or perhaps just over a week, one day I suddenly noticed that the plant had lots of small Monarch caterpillars all over it! Suddenly, my excitement and motivation began! I went out and bought 2 more plants to help those babies grow and have plenty of food. I was able to successfully raise indoors 14 healthy Monarchs (9 females, 5 males). I also hand-raised a male and female born a week or two apart, as they each had some deformities with their wings and could not fly. I told myself after releasing the healthy 14 into the wild, that I would let nature take over for a while. But, by this time I had already invested in 2 tall butterfly habitats, as well as a total of 8 Tropical Milkweed plants…LOL! It didn’t take me long to realize just how many plants and leaves one goes through when trying to feed those caterpillars. ? Anyway, my last release was in late October/early November. We went out of state for over a week at Thanksgiving time and upon return, while watering my growing butterfly garden, I saw a bunch of new caterpillars covering my Milkweed! I couldn’t help but be excited and kept counting them over and over. In total, over a period of about a week, I discovered I had 24 caterpillars! My 8 plants would surely not be enough for all of these guys, as the plants were still in the process of growing back from the last feast of caterpillars which had stripped the plants bare. On top of this, the weather turned suddenly extremely cold for our area, within just a matter off 24 hours. This was last week and lasted for several days in a row with temps in the 40’s and high 30’s at night. I had no choice but to give these guys my best efforts to make it to adulthood. I ended up bringing all of them indoors to raise. Living in central Florida, I thought for sure that the winter season was here and that I probably would not be seeing Monarchs, let alone Monarch eggs and caterpillars until spring. I assumed the migration had already taken place. But, I have since learned that some (if not all) of Florida Monarchs don’t actually end up migrating. In fact, they are pretty active year-round here and December happens to be a busy month here for Monarch sightings. What do I know? I’m learning as I go along this adventure. Anyway, as of today, I have 15 chrysalises and 2 “J”-shaped caterpillars. I also have another 5 that are all on their way to soon becoming a chrysalis, as well. In all, I am expecting a total of 22 Monarchs to emerge within the next 5-20 days! I now have a total of 4 habitats to raise them in and 17 Tropical Milkweed plants…LOL! You could say that it has become addicting for me and I’m a bit obsessed. I did lose 1 caterpillar due to drowning ? in some water that had gathered at the bottom of my potted plant inside the habitat. I also lost 1 chrysalis, as he never had a chance to make his silk “button” and had no place to attach himself to. I found him curled up at the bottom of a potted Milkweed plant. After researching ideas online, I did manage to hang him from a makeshift q-tip that was adhered to the inside of one of the habitats. But, when it came time for him to turn into a chrysalis, he fell from the q-tip and despite it not being a long drop and me having carefully placed a plastic cup with some soft napkins for him to land in case he did fall, he must have damaged his outer shell. He began leaking green fluid and eventually, black fluid, too. Anyway, I am excited that my first season of attempting to educate myself about Monarchs and raising them has turned into a successful adventure! If all 22 survive and are healthy, then I will have successfully raised and released 39 Monarchs this fall/winter into the wild! I’m excited to be part of the initiative to raise their migration and population! I have been educating others with all that I am learning and have learned on Facebook with my friends and family. I have shared numerous amazing photos and video clips recently, of some of the miraculous metamorphosis process that Monarchs go through. Im happy to have a new passion and to do my part to help ecology! ??

8. LESSONS LEARNED: A chrysalis must have enough room for the caterpillar to spread its wings completely or its wings will be damaged and it won’t be able to fly. I didn’t hang 1 chrysalis high enough in the cage. In the other case the chrysalis was attached inside a watering can. I used the can without ever realizing it was in there. The butterfly didn’t have enough room to spread its wings when it hatched and was crippled.

   Caterpillars EAT SEED PODS. The only 1 pod I got this year was devoured in it’s green stage.

   There’s never been enough milkweed to keep up with the caterpillars so I wander through the woods and find small plants to put in my garden.

   1. PLEASE HELP ME: I didn’t know what to do with the crippled caterpillars that could not fly. I was afraid to leave them crawling through the flowers so I put them to sleep in the freezer. Did I do the wrong thing?

      1. Hi Georgeanne, there’s info about euthanizing butterflies in this post:

         When Monarch Butterflies Emerge

9. The #1 lesson I learned this year: NEVER, EVER THINK YOU HAVE TOO MANY MILKWEED PLANTS!!!

10. Please excuse me but I do not have the time to read everyone’s comments right now, so I do not know If anyone has already remarked about this. In the summer of 2016 I successfully raised monarchs from eggs in July. I then placed several males and females in a large cage hoping they would mate and lay eggs. The cage was on my patio under an overhanging roof so the sunshine was only on one side. The adults clung to the netting on that side and would not sip the nectar from the flowers I provided. After three days I released them all to the garden for fear they would starve. This year I found out that the cage must be situated in full sun so that the sunlight enters on all sides. Indeed, I successfully repeated the process and the monarchs mated and laid eggs on my pink, A. incarnata, and tropical, A. curassavica milkweeds. I was able to tag and release 92 monarchs in October.
    The other thing I did was raise tropical milkweed plants in pots under lights in my house. It was much easier to rotate them into the cages then to inspect the pink milkweed from my garden for intruders. And after the tropical milkweed leaves were eaten, I was able to re-grow them for more leaves.
    I live in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
    And thank you, Tony, for all your help. I don’t think I could have done it without you.

11. Hello!! I reside in Redondo Beach, CA, one mile east of the beach & 10 miles south of LAX & began raising Monarchs this past July. An incredible passion for these engaging critters blossomed in a few short weeks as did the cats’ endless voracious appetites for milkweed. Being a novice, I initially failed to keep a log pertaining to the number of cats nurtured & their eventual outcome. Honestly, for those first few months, my focus was in maintaining the milkweed & ensuring each plant was free of any harmful insects or diseases before introducing the plant to my cats, cleaning the cages of frass &, of course, absorbing any & all information in protecting my “brood” and applying it!! Nonetheless, up to this point, I’m confident in stating I’d easily raised & released 50 butterflies.

    At the beginning of October, I collected approximately 30 cats from the milkweed I’d purchased at the beginning of my Monarch experience, losing every single one to what appeared to be tachinid. Such a humbling experience, after caring for & coddling these amazing creatures. After being so attentive, it was crushing to absorb the fact that no matter how hard I tried to provide the cats with a perfect living environment, they were undoubtedly already infected with the tachinid & there was no measure that could be taken to turn back the clock.

    So, after a short out-ot-town respite, I began the process again at the beginning of November, collecting nearly 80 cats. As you can see below, perseverance does pay off!! I can hardly wait until Spring to start the new season!!!!

    The current status from 11/26 to 12/2 is as follows:

    34 Eclosed (Released)
    5 Eclosed (To be released tomorrow)
    15 Chrysalides
    1 Crippled & Maintained in Captivity
    25 Cats in various instar stages

    The time I’ve committed in learning about this beautiful but endangered insect & the steps required to protect it has been a tremendous experience which I intend on using to entice others in my immediate neighborhood to disseminate information encouraging others to preserve the Monarch butterfly to our spectacular California coastline for generations to come.

    Happy Holidays to you, Tony & your Family. Thank you for your support & great publications!!!

    1. This was my first year raising Monarchs, and not only did I enjoy it, it was more successful than I could have imagined. Last year I planted a ton of Milkweed around our property, because I knew that I would try my hand at raising Monarchs the following year. The cats abounded, as did Monarchs. I gathered 71 cats, and successfully released 69 healthy Monarchs. I lost two chrysalides due to damaging them when I replaced milkweed. Each day I replaced the milkweed. I had so many cats that I found it best to harvest three foot tall plants and place them in quart jars inside the enclosure. Instead of transferring the cats one-by-one to fresh milkweed with a small artist’s brush, I cut the section of milkweed containing a cat and placed it on a fresh leaf. That was a real time saver. I’m already looking forward to next years Monarch project. Raising those butterflies was the most rewarding project I’ve ever done.

12. I released 15 Monarchs with the last one being released on Nov. 17th. That makes my total for the year at 75. 60 were raised from eggs and the final 15 from caterpillars found in my flowerbed. I actually collected 35 caterpillars but most of them were euthanized due to Tachinid flies. I have already reported the first 60, so if it’s not too late, please add the final 15 to the final migration count.
    Can’t wait till spring!!!

    HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL and GOD BLESS.

13. I released a total of 227 monarch butterflies. I started in july and just ended november 1st. My October caterpillars didnt do as well as my july-September caterpillars ?. I am in Rancho Santa Fe California. My earlier season butterflies seemed much larger and stronger. My October batch was smaller and weaker. I had quite a few die in caterpillar stage and about 3 chrysalides that never eclosed. Im not sure what was happening in subsequent batches. I dont know if i sanitized the mesh cages in too high of a concentration of bleach or what happened. I rinsed and re-rinsed to no avail. Any ideas? Also i was desperate for good milkweed there at the end so that may have been the problem.

    1. Last year was my first year raising monarchs and I raised around 20. This year I raised maybe 30 with the last few leaving in September. I experienced the same as you (on a much smaller scale) as the last caterpillars seemed smaller and weaker. I live in the Eastlake area of Chula Vista, CA and thought I was done as I cut back all of my milkweed (mostly tropical and the a few native species) and this month (November) found a few caterpillars and a few eggs while watering my plants. I just couldn’t leave them outside so I brought out my mesh cage and brought them inside. My milkweed has grown back so I have enough to feed these few. I have one chrysalis that looks very good plus a newly hatched caterpillar and one egg. I’m hoping I don’t find any more eggs in my yard because I will probably bring them inside. The weather here in San Diego is still warm so I am thinking these last few butterflies will be fine when they hatch.

14. We live in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada. We hatched and released 6 healthy Monarchs – an extremely rewarding experience. The excitement was contagious as our sister and our neighbor added 4 more to the total. We appreciate all the information so readily available, and look forward to next year!!!

    1. I am in southern Oregon (Medford) and released 108 Monarchs this year. Some were found as eggs, some as caterpillars at all stages, and even one pupa found. I lost two pupa to tachnid larva, and 3 catepillars to sprayed milkweed. Everyone else was healthy and happy. I am fascinated by the Queens and Swallowtails and plan to read up on them to see how people are finding/raising butterflies that don’t have a single host plant.

       1. Teresa, I too live in Medford and would love to talk to you directly. I am just starting with Monarchs. Last year I released three after getting the caterpillars from a neighbor. I planted more milkweed this fall and am hoping for a big crop. kfleppek@gmail.com Thanks, Katherine.

15. Hello, I am in Central Texas, just north of Austin. I live on 5 acres and have always had lots of butterflies due to the Antelope Horns, the many native plants, the meadows, and also the 8 different kinds of Passion Flower. This was my first year of growing Tropical Milkweed and of raising Monarchs. Our final tally was 47 monarchs, 33 queens, and 25 swallowtails. Our tropical milkweed cuttings rooted readily and we placed them in moist/wet spaghnum moss while more roots grew, before planting in soil. During the hottest months the predators were everywhere. With some cooler weather, I noticed substantially less predators, and finally saw a few monarchs, queens, and gulf frittilaries making it on their own out in the wild. I noticed that the monarchs would roost in my bald cypress trees and live oak trees in the evenings. They preferred the blue mist flowers to the white mist flowers. My tropical milkweed is over 5 feet tall and I will be making lots of cuttings before our first frost and overwintering them for planting in the spring. Many monarach eggs were laid on yellow/orange and yellow/red tropical milkweed, but not on the lone solid yellow tropical milkweed plant growing right next to the others. I learned a lot of wonderful information from your site. Thank you.

    1. I iften think of you Texans… so much cliser to the iver wintering Minarchs! Thinking… puleeeze have fresh Mweed on land you control and lots if nectar fliwers so we in the nitth hsve many to send back to you!
       Thanks for your notes! Keep on! We wait for spring here in Minnesota

16. My husband and I released 60, total, monarchs. They all appeared to be healthy. 31 males and 29 females. I was amazed at how the boy/girl count was almost 50/50. Tony, I wonder if this is why they “hang” together in chrysalis. Maybe they give off pheromones that helps determine their sex. I gathered eggs and had close to 80 of them. I think some may have been infertile and some may have been eaten. I learned a lot about housing the cats at various stages and how to make the most of the 24″ cube.
    I learned that for at least 2 weeks you will be at the beck and call of your cats who will be eating 24/7!!!
    One thing that will help you keep up with microscopic caterpillars is your smart phone. Use the camera and spread the picture as wide as it will go and you’ll see the tiniest critters and eggs on every leaf. Just make sure your battery is fully charged.
    An 18″ tile at the bottom of the 24″ cube net gives you a surface that is stable and easy to clean. It holds the cube down well too.
    If you have any small tropical milkweed plants try pulling, them up roots and all, and using them for the cats to eat, leaving the roots on them, and then keep them in water and sunshine until they produce new leaves and pot them to keep till spring.
    Every time you release a new Monarch it’s like a miracle and you are a part of it.
    Thank you for sharing your time and knowledge with us. I am waiting to see if some fat cats that I found in my garden make it. Several are in chrysalis stage but many have been lost to the tachinid flies. If I don’t get some healthy Monarchs this time I’ll let nature take its course next year. We’re expecting a cold snap in NW Louisiana but then we will still have some 70’s for a couple of weeks. I also had some passion flower vines and had a good crop of Gulf Fritillaries. I saw a Monarch and a Fritillary flying together today. I’m working on some upgrades to my flowerbed and getting ready for next year.
    “Up the migration”!!!
    Dianne

17. This was my first year focusing on monarchs. I already started designing a butterfly gardens 2 years ago with great success for many bees and butterflies. Last year I added 4 kind of milkweed and sure enough the monarchs found my garden. In august, I was searching another organic way to get rid off the aphids that were destroying some of my milkweeds when I landed on this website. 2 hours later I set up my temporary sanctuary. In a few days all the needed supply arrived from amazon and the last healthy girl was released yesterday.
    Altogether, I released 168 butterflies. In the last 4 weeks I lost 15 crysalis to machined fly (these were brought in as large caterpillars.
    This season was more than butterflies for us. We had our 5 years old grand daughter who was part of the whole process and was able to release the very first butterfly. We are grateful that we were able to provide that experience for her. Also, watching her excitement and enthusiasm was priceless for us.
    Lessons for me: try to bring in the eggs asap. I feel that I need to have more nectar plants. i already bought 10 different native seeds and some sprouted already in pots. I also will add 2 more garden, seeing that the butterflies were preferring some location better than other.
    Thank you for this comprehensive website. It was a great resource for me. I was happy that everything I needed to know was here. Also I appreciate Tony’s quick response when I had a question. I live in VA, just 40 miles south of DC

18. Late check in from Santa Cruz. I had another cat hatch out of an egg today. Our weather has been very warm and at times very hot and dry like the desert in Palm Springs! So the issues I had raising other than accidents was the dry heat, it would turn milkweed leaves dry and crisp so quick. We have an opposite migration since the butterflies come here for the winter, we just had a welcome back Monarchs festival at the beginning of Oct.

    This year was a slow start, we had torrential rains in the winter so my milkweed didn’t really get going until mid March, usually I have Swamp milkweed starting at the end of Jan. The first group was very small, just five or six. They emerged and then hung out in the garden. The next group was much larger, I had over sixty chrysalis and probably 95% success for emerged butterflies. I was really concerned though, I thought I would have more eggs than I had milkweed for since that group of sixty really devoured most of my milkweed, but instead of tons of eggs, I didn’t find more than ten, so I think they headed out of town to join the Western migration. For the rest of the summer I had constantly ten Monarchs at a time on their journey from cat to butterfly, until the last generation, then the numbers went up again, not quite to sixty, closer to thirty, I have a dozen chrysalis, half a dozen 5 instar cats and about five small ones. Monarchs are flying daily in the garden.

    I have five types of milkweed – swamp, narrow leaf, showy, balloon and tropical, I already have started milkweeds in the greenhouse so I don’t have the lag like I did this year. As far as success this year is closer to 90% and that is the best so far. I do agree keeping things clean and dry (but good humidity) has helped. I rinse off all milkweed, and all containers the milkweed go in get cleaned with a 10% bleach solution. I put paper towels on top of newspaper on the floor of the cages so I can just pick them up easily to manage the grass.

    In my butterfly garden I have passionflowers and a beautiful purple malva, I have Gulf Fritillaries, painted ladies, tons of skippers and a small gorgeous blue butterfly. For nectar flowers, I have zinnias, purple coneflower and butterfly bush. I did see a couple swallowtails fly through, no cats even though I have fennel, perhaps next year.

    The biggest joy is when friends and family are visiting and a Monarch happens to emerge and they get to help with the release, it is a life changing experience for sure.

19. Monarchs: 17 males and 17 females
    Last Monarch on October 11, 2017
    Lynbrook, Long Island, NY
    Black Swallowtails: 77 so far including 18 that over wintered with us.
    Last one came out yesterday on Friday the 20th. Approx 20 chrysalis left.
    Thank you Tony for this great website and all your helpful information.
    I LOVE raising butterflies!

20. We are in Northern-Central IL.

    This is the first year, that we were more proactive with the monarch caterpillars. Instead of letting the caterpillars mature outside, and then bring them in; we started bringing in the baby caterpillars, after we realized that something may have been eating the small caterpillars.

    Ended up with 12 male, 18 female successes. Basically all hatched in September. Lost one during Chrysalis change, and one baby (not sure why).

    We are very excited to do more next year and are currently planning on where to plant new Milkweed seeds in the yard.

21. My first year raising monarchs in the Windsor Ontario area. Had a total of 28 cats lost 1 to tachinid maggots and 1 is unknown.
    Released 26 Monarchs. 8 Males and 18 females. The last 3 were released September 20.

    Here we are in the 3rd week of October and still seeing 1 or 2 Monarchs a day hanging out in our maple trees. I’ve collected plenty of common milkweed seeds to plant around the yard this fall and have ordered a few other types of milkweed to plant hoping to raised at least twice as many next year.

    1. First year trying, was able to raise and release 5 near Chicago. I have seen several Monarchs in the last week, most recently yesterday, on the only thing still flowering in my yard, yellow Marigold.

22. This is my second year raising butterflies. Last year I raised 2 adult monarchs. I had an EGG-siting summer this year 2017 with the cats & monarchs, I watched the female monarchs when they landed on my milkweed, and decided to mark the leaves with a needle pierced tip so they were easier to find. I had 3 batches: 1st 2, then 5 and last 2 with a little overlap between batches. All were healthy and not sure of percent female & male. It was a challenge to keep the 5 cats with enough milkweed to eat every day as my supply of milkweed is about 7 plants mixed in with my flowers, so I bought 1 butterfly weed, with the orange flowers. I collected the tiny cats early and put them in my screened cage especially if there was a storm predicted. We were going to be out of town during the last part of the life cycle of my middle batch and I didn’t want to lose any so I brought them to a greenhouse near us that has a butterfly house out side of the greenhouse for any cat you find. So you can bring them in to “Butterfly Bob” and he has plenty of plants to feed them and treats them well and I assume they all made it to the final stage. The cage was crawling with caterpillars and chrysalises around 60 or so. I love raising them and our out -of -town grandchildren are interested in how the cats are doing when they talk to us on the phone, & spend time in the butterfly house at the MN State Fair. I am looking forward to 2018!

23. I live in southern Kentucky, and this is my third year to raise Monarch caterpillars. Each year I have released one more butterfly than I did the year before. : )
    Through late August and September, I had a total of 10 caterpillars. One died of some kind of infection when it was about one inch long the day after I found it and brought it in. I released nine healthy butterflies! Four male and five female.
    In early spring, I found at least 11 tiny caterpillars on my Milkweed. I made the mistake of not bringing them in immediately, and the next morning they were all gone! I assumed that spiders or other predators got them. I won’t make that mistake again!

24. Last year I raised 2. This year 6 makes and 7 females (100% survival rate) and I gave away around 26 eggs for others to raise. This year I planted a little late and my flowering plants didn’t bloom till late in the season. Next year I’ll jump start my plants indoirs. Great season !

25. NW Philadelphia – With the cold temps we had at the end of August, we were a little worried it’d be an early fall… (nope!) so we brought in everyone we found outside – mostly 4th and 5th instars on Labor Day weekend. It has been an amazing learning experience for us and our kids. Our first group all eclosed in two days so we let 29 go on 9/23/17 and then 12 more through the 28th. Two eggs were hiding on the (common) milkweed we brought in from our patch and they were ready to fly on 10/2 and 10/3. We lost 5 caterpillars and 1 chrysalis to tachinid flies. One is still with us – she fell during “J” and then again during chrysalis formation, and thus has a bent wing that’s short. We were able to check – no OE – but she can’t fly other than downward in a circle. She loves grape juice and basking in the sun and is clearly annoyed about not being able to head south. I’m debating trimming her wings to match and try to unbend the curve with some cardstock OR keep her as our winter pet. The glass aquarium on it’s side (for easy access without disturbing chrysalis!) keeps our cats frustrated at fluttering Nicole (the kids named her) but she’s safe.

    1. Hi Heather, you could try trimming the wings so they are symmetrical, but she may have been injured during the fall. At least then she has a chance, and you can still keep her if it doesn’t work out. good luck!

26. I live in Southwest Missouri, Neosho. This is my second year of raising monarchs. Two years ago I raised and released around 35 monarchs. I had a few that did not survive but overall it was a very good experience. This year I raised and released 34 in August. Five or six of them didn’t make it. In September I released around 120. I checked 50 of them OE and found no evidence of spores. These were tagged and released. Another seventy or so were released. Overall, of the 150 released in late summer, probably 20 or so we’re not successful. I did have some die from the TRICHANID Fly . I found the pupa in the bottom of the cage. Some of the others, I’m not sure about but a few of the Chrysalides did not survive either. It was a great experience. I raise my own milkweeds and I’ll do it again next year.

27. Farmington (Fayetteville) Arkansas. This is the first year Iraised Monarchs. Sadly, the first batch (12 or so) all died of NPV virus. I took strict measures for my cleanliness and there cages. The results were 110 eggs, I lost count but I would say only 1/2-2/3 made it to complete migration flight mode. I encountered every single disease mentioned in the article—mostly different kinds of virus, bent wings from falling, some although looking very healthy just did not fly well enough to release, chrysalises that did not hatch. I had good luck with the middle batches, but, at the very end of the season it was just awful. I lost 30-40 to sickness of various kinds at various stages. No matter what measures I took to isolate, it did not seem to help. I learned a lot about containers I liked and did not like—I think it is a matter of personal choice. Next year, I may try pipettes. I may try ordering some eggs next year to perhaps help with increasing the health of monarchs in this area. A lot of work with so-so results. FYI, of the ones that survived, 70% were female. Also, one can never have too much milkweed . . . I am planting another bed and may try to tent some to keep it healthier.

    I also raised between 3-4 dozen black swallowtails with only 3 fatalities due to illness and two that emerged with malformed wings. Six stragglers are overwintering. I find them a lot easier, but perhaps that is because I have done it a few years. They seem a lot hardier than monarchs in this area for sure.

28. Hello . I am writing from Churchville, Maryland. In September, I counted 17 Monarch catapillars on my milkweed plants! I was so excited to see them as it was my first summer growing Milkweed plants. I only found two Chrysalis a couple weeks later, however. One chrysalis was hanging from my hummingbird solar light in the garden out on the edge of our creek and one on a plant. Very cool!
    On October 4th, I saw two Monarch Butterflies hanging from their chrysalis! One flew away and the other stayed around for awhile.
    Yay! 2 more Monarchs. I hope I’ll get more next year!

29. I live in Ontario on the Oak Ridges Moraine.
    I have been allowing a patch of milkweed to grow in my yard where it naturally seeded itself for the past 5 or so years. This is the first year I have seen monarch caterpillars on the milkweed so I was very happy!
    I brought 13 caterpillars in to raise them and all formed chrysalis but only 5 emerged. The other ones turned dark and just stayed that way with no butterfly emerging. At first I was blaming myself and worried about something I had done wrong but I noticed that two chrysalis that I was watching that were formed naturally on some wood in a woodpile in our backyard also did not produce butterflies. Just turned dark.
    We do not live near farms and have 2 acres of property that we have never used herbicides or pesticides on for the 15 years we have lived there so it’s not pesticides.
    Anyway it was a joy to see and photograph the 5 that did make it and I will look forward to more success next year!

30. This was the first year I’ve ever raised monarchs, and I didn’t start until August. I found 6 eggs and successfully had 3 eggs hatch and were released as monarchs, 2 females & 1 male. I had milkweed in the garden but didn’t start thinking about raising them until I was at the Ramsey County Library (I see they have posted here as well) and saw they were raising them. So I then started looking for eggs. As I was raising them, I referenced this site many times. I had mostly swamp milkweed in the garden and I was amazed at the number of monarchs I saw throughout the summer

    This process was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done and I talked about it to anyone who would listen. I can’t wait for next year and being able to start early in the year; right now I am harvesting milkweed seeds and planting for next year.

31. Otsego, MN
    I have kept (and released as butterflies) one or two caterpillars found in the backyard each year. Never raised one from, or even found an egg until this year. Wasn’t planned, just happened. Next year… I will be ready!!! 😀
    Also, have never spotted a caterpillar in our yard until mid-August each year. This year, I found my first two cats the beginning of June, and it kept going from there.

    12 caterpillars brought in from the yard
    1 caterpillar started shrinking after the fourth instar & passed

    78 eggs gathered from our yard, neighbors, and daughters
    2 larvae didn’t eat beyond the egg & passed

    87 made it to chrysalis
    84 Healthy Releases
    2 Not Healthy * **
    1 Accidental death 🙁

    *During the third instar, the skin did not completely shed. The caterpillar kept eating and at the fourth instar, all the skin shed. His back-end was still a little wonky, but he did form a proper chrysalis. I kept it to the side, so I could see what happened. When the butterfly emerged, his back left leg remained tucked and wouldn’t extended. He did fly away.

    **I noticed one caterpillar that was very lethargic in the morning. Didn’t think it was going to make it. When I cleaned the cage that evening, a chrysalis rolled out on the towel. It had the black stem, but not one stitch of silk. It was also flat on one side from laying and not hanging. I clipped it up and watched to see if it would become a butterfly. It did, however, the wings on the right side were noticeably smaller than the other side. It could not fly and died within a few days.

    🙁 Don’t want to admit the accidental death was my fault. However, if this helps anyone else, I’m going to share. Throughout the summer, when a cat was ready to J, I would move it to a jar. I ended up taking around 15 to work to hand-out around the office. The ladies would hang the lids at their desk and when the chrysalis would form, everyone would gather around to watch. Then in a few weeks when the Monarch would emerge, the excitement would happen all over again. The very last caterpillar I had couldn’t make up it’s mind on wanting to J or continue eating, so I stuck a stick of milkweed in the jar with the cat. The weed went all the way to the top of the jar. I should have only put in a leaf. When the cat went to the J, I unscrewed the lid to hang it, so we could watch when it went green. I didn’t realize that the cat had spun silk all over everything at the top of the jar, so when I twisted the lid off, the silk was wrapping around the cat. It’s so fine, I didn’t see it or realize what happened until it was too late. When the chrysalis started to emerge (and we weren’t in the room), the silk kept the skin on and the chrysalis from expanding properly/completely. When we found it and realized what I happened, I felt horrible!

32. I’m fortunate to live in Southern California, where the Monarchs tend to thrive; however, we have had unusually warm temps for this late in the season, so I’m still seeing them regularly. My biggest success in reaching out to Monarchs? My beautiful milkweed plants!! Of course, they have to share them with the honey bees, but there’s plenty to go around. I’ll never go without milkweed again. They don’t require much in the way of pampering (they hate to be over-watered), and they’ll grow in just about any soil. They seem to love my hibiscus trees as well.

33. I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana (northeast corner of the state). This is my first year! +40 years ago my husband and I were stationed in San Antonio, Tx for his Air Force schooling. One cool fall day, we noticed “things” that seem to be falling or floating, yet moving in the sky above us. We discovered they were Monarch butterflies! Hundreds, thousands of them! “Wha…???” No one we told about it knew of any “migration” back then. It was memorable! A couple years ago I came upon internet sites telling of their decline, and sites devoted to raising and releasing these delicate beauties. I took in all I could. I could do this!
    However, last year the Monarch’s I saw visiting, never laid eggs on the milkweed I had. I wondered “Why?” Then, I read they taste the leaves before laying their eggs to ensure quality food for their offspring. I thought the milkweed I grew were healthy! Until one windy day, I watched the lawn people at work! Oh no! Their chemicals drifted right over my cone flower bed! They grew deformed and stunted! This wasn’t the first “mishap” of their “professional application”, and I had no problem ending the service! This year, the Monarch’s laid their eggs on my milkweed! Lesson learned: Don’t use chemicals on your lawn and think it’s only on the grass!
    In late June this year, I followed a visiting Monarch and found her eggs! I took great pains with my first 30. I picked fresh leaves and wrapped each stem with pieces of wet paper towel. It was very time consuming to move each baby cat to new leaves and clean the container of their frass… 3 times a day! A little overkill, and I learned I didn’t have to be that hands on! I continued to visit sites and learned more about the various diseases and predators that befall the caterpillars at any stage.
    I learned you don’t have to have “butterfly habitats” (although they are nice) to hold the growing cat’s. I used flat food storage containers till they were the size to start “wandering”. Then, I placed the small cat’s in several large, clear, floral vases with a square of fine tulle fabric secured with a rubber band over the top. (about 6 cats per vase) I also began washing (plain water) and running my fingers over the leaves to take off any sneaky parasite and crusty or sticky globs that may be eggs about to hatch and feast on my babies. As they became 4th & 5th instar munching machines, I began to offer cut milkweed plant portions, wrapping the stems in moist paper towels. The glass vases were quick and easy to clean, were safe enclosures (with the tulle fabric secured on top), provided good air circulation, and zero cost to me as I had them for my cut flowers. The rounded shape of the vase gave a good chrysalis hanging area as well! I learned how to carefully move the chrysalis off the vase , after it hardened, for the “making their wings” stage. There were still munchers within the vase!
    I re-hung all the chrysalis in a netted “habitat”(I had purchased for Painted Ladies) till the day of eclosure. I had a 2nd large habitat that I moved the new butterflies into, after drying an hour or so. I placed them on my deck to acclimate to the weather and temperature change (from air conditioning) for a few more hours. It was a safe, predator free place to flex wings and gain strength. I always released them the same day, with one exception of a stormy day. I held the butterfly overnight. I offered flowers and a recipe for butterfly syrup, but I don’t know if the butterfly consumed any of it.
    Then came the fun part! My 6 yr old granddaughter and I had named each caterpillar, and we sometimes needed to name tweek the new butterfly, depending on it’s sex. I would place the new butterfly on her arm, we wished it a safe flight, and I watched the butterfly flutter away with my granddaughter chasing behind. It never got old!
    As I gathered leaves for the last of the 1st batch, I found eggs. I thought, “Ok! I’ll do another batch!” I quickly found another batch of +30. This time I left the newly hatched cat’s on the leaf squares I cut around the eggs. I merely transferred it to a fresh leaf. I did have a few go “missing” as I cleaned their enclosures! I soon discovered that each baby, anchors itself with a silky thread. I would find they had hung on for dear life, to that old leaf and were in the “trash” pile! Your eye gets trained to see their little body moving! I found it wise to do a “cat count” and in this way I could discover if “someone” had gone “wandering”, or had done a “spiderman swing” during the cleaning process.
    I had also read about the use of an aquarium as a habitat. I had an old one! We fashioned and nailed a square of wood pieces to fit just inside the edge and stapled a large piece of tulle fabric to this “frame”. I had 4 plastic (round) plant trays that fit, 2 side by side into the aquarium bottom. I made a pedestal for each (from clear deli containers) to hold a second “layer” of trays. There was room for 25 of the large muncher’s now. I was able to lift out the trays for cleaning, the large cat’s were spaced out with their food source, and they were safe from predators. It was a great habitat for the larger instars! It’s rim was also a good place for making chrysalis! A really neat thing I discovered with them all in the aquarium… when I hovered over, looking down, their munching was amplified! I had problems sleeping and one night found myself curious. Do they sleep at night? The answer: No! They keep on munching and munching in the dark, and in the morning they were all lined up on the spines of the devoured milkweed leaves! They weren’t done eating though!
    I lost about 5 to the Black death. So sad they were that close to flying…but, I learned they were sick. I will keep reading and learning this winter.
    I read about people who think it better to leave a monarch caterpillar “in nature” rather than intervening and raising them in “captivity”. I believe in letting nature do it’s thing myself! But they should not consider themselves “raising” monarchs if they are merely watching nature take it’s toll. As I gathered eggs, I came upon a tiny 2nd stage instar cat. At the moment I spied it, an itsy bitsy spider had also begun it’s pounce! I won! But I’m equally certain he found another tasty meal too! I believe all we are really doing in “raising” monarchs is protecting them from an early death. In doing so, we give them a chance to live and reproduce. We are giving back, as other’s take away their lives by greed or ignorance. We aren’t altering genes or creating abnormal populations. (Unless I’ve missed the Massive Mutant Monarch Explosion in the headlines… : ) We, humans, have depleted and altered their world in so many ways. And I can’t help but wonder, what about their populations with this current years multiple hurricanes and the out of control wild fires? I believe we can help them survive.
    I hope I will be gifted with the opportunity to share the miracle of the Monarch’s next year, when they fly home again.

    1. What is the black death?

    2. Awesome post Sandy, thanks for the info!

34. I only released two monarchs into the migration–a male and a female. I collected more eggs than that, but some didn’t hatch and other cats died pretty early. I am wondering if it’s because we had some nights that dipped into the 40s and I left them out in the three-season room. The two successful butterflies pupated really long and I finally brought them inside so they would get more warmth.

35. Hi Tony,
    I am not sure if I missed your final reporting for the 2017 season, but I am sending you my results as follows:

    Total number of monarchs released so far this season: 722
    (349 males/373 females)

    I live in West Deptford, New Jersey (near Philadelphia.) I have been raising monarchs for several years now, and each year I have had more monarchs & eggs on milkweed in my garden. This has been the largest number yet. Over the past four to five years I have noticed that I do not start seeing Monarchs in our area until July. In previous years it was usually late July. However, this year the butterflies started visiting my garden and laying eggs in early July—sooner than before. I think that is a good sign! Is it possible that the Monarchs do not fly to the eastern states early during their spring migration and just move north through the central US states? Then when they start migrating back down south they fly through the Midwest along with the eastern states? (Just an observation..)

    I have about 10 Swamp Milkweed in the ground in my garden, and 20 in flower pots. This past year I also grew about 60 Tropical Milkweed plants from seed & kept them in flower pots. I have not planted native common milkweed in my yard yet because I was concerned about the plants possibly becoming invasive. Unfortunately a lot of my swamp milkweed in pots was plagued with a rust colored fungus during the summer months, which greatly reduced the amount of milkweed I had to feed the large number of caterpillars that I was raising. (I am worried about the future of these plants for next year—dealing with fungus spores.) As a result, I searched out common milkweed that was growing wild along roadsides and fields. During the height of the caterpillars feeding frenzy I estimate that I cut about 150 of 2 to 3 foot stalks common milkweed for the large caterpillars to eat. I used my tropical milkweed for the young cats.

    Female monarchs have been laying eggs on the remaining plants in my yard now for the past several weeks. Currently I have about 15 new chrysalides, along with about 25 caterpillars feeding in my butterfly cages. Also, there are still eggs on plants that have not hatched. My swamp milkweed is leafless, the tropical milkweed plants have sparse leaves, and I am hunting for any common milkweed that is still remaining in fields and along roadsides. Most of the wild common milkweed in our area has dropped its leaves for the season, or the leaves have become dry and yellow. The weather has been warmer than usual here, which may be the reason for the recent monarch egg laying? So far I am finding milkweed sources—hopefully enough to feed the remaining caterpillars. Then I will have to worry about what the weather will be like when these new butterflies emerge in a couple to few weeks. Will it be warm enough for them to make the migration??

    I had some chrysalis problems during the season—probably about 30 where the caterpillars were able to make a chrysalis but they turned black and the butterflies never emerged. A few caterpillars started making a chrysalis, but never completely finished. I had about 8 butterflies emerge with deformed wings. I knew they could not fly, so I kept them in butterfly cages and fed them with sugar water and small nectar plants until they passed away on their own.

    I wanted to share my results with you because I think we have had a good season in our area. Thank you for all your informative newsletters and your passion about helping the Monarchs!!

36. I live in La Verne, CA, about 30 miles east of Los Angeles. I started 3 years ago but this is the first year that we were serious. We started in my notebook on June 3, 2017. In all, we tracked 70 caterpillars. We had 6 successful releases in June, but when July came we lost almost all 12 to parasites. I did not know about the Tachinid fly and this was a difficult learning experience as I took video of the deceased cat with apparently multiple parasites inside. I was about to quit raising monarchs altogether but my husband encouraged me to continue. In all, we raised 70 from eggs under the protection of a reptile cage during the months of August-September. I thought I was finished when our last monarch left on September 28th but with our higher than normal temps at that time we had many eggs tempting me to take them in.

    Today I have five cats: 2 ready to form a chrysalis and the other three not far behind. Our evening temps drop into the high 40’s so I take the cage in at night and put back on the patio each morning. We have a monarch pair that continues to visit our garden daily. I think this will be the last set of eggs that I take in for the remainder of the year. Looking forward to 2018 season.

    I am proud to say that we have at least eight friends that have taken up raising monarchs this year and we share pictures with each other. It’s great fun and an easy topic to talk about with almost anyone. I plan to add a Monarch gallery to my website later this month – now that I have some spare time!

    Thank you for all you have done to promote and instruct so many on how to Raise Monarchs! Roxanne

37. I planted my first milkweed three years ago. The second year I had my first caterpillars and was so excited. This year I have three butterflies still feeding and it is October 15 in Oklahoma. Our weather is finally starting to cool down so I hope they depart soon but in the meantime I am enjoying their presence in my garden. Next year I think I will attempt to hand-raise some of them inside. This year I lost a lot to predators or whatever but I was afraid to bring them in. I never realized you could be successful raising them inside so I’m ready to try. I will be researching the subject over the winter.

38. New Orleans, West Bank, first year raising. Tropical, African and butterfly milkweeds. Aphids in several waves starting July, other common pests in smaller numbers. Sixty seven healthy releases March through September. Three unsuccessful eclosures due to OE starting late August. Bleach-cleaned everything and added a third wash to all milkweed brought inside nonetheless had a NPV outbreak in late September. Euthanized all caterpillars, again bleach cleaned everything including rest of house and decided for me the season was over for t.his year. (NPV was also observed among Gulf Fritillaries at the same time.) As of this date 10/14/17 air temps are still reaching highs of 90 and there are still lots of eggs and caterpillars outdoors–mostly in my friends’ gardens, as in mine, the geckos get whatever caterpillars the wasps can’t carry off/ Lessons learned:
    Here in the Gulf States the problems of how attractive non=native milkweeds are to butterflies, how widespread they have become, the lack of a cold winter to force them to die back and the prevalence of OE– these are serious problems. Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana are all funding, through various existing entities, efforts to invent large scale propagation of native milkweeds. Personally, I am going to replace 90% of my tropical by spring.
    Also, I am pondering the Xerces Society’s recent position paper regarding large scale butterfly raising. For the first time, they caution against it. They believe the practice is weakening wild butterflies and increasing disease incidence. This is measurable in the Gulf South (OE), though I suspect it is less of a problem in northern latitudes. But I am not a scientist. Further, raised and released butterflies complicate scientific studies that require census taking. Of course I have divided feelings.
    I am grateful to have met through this group and other venues, so many good and dedicated conservationists. A joy.

    1. Hi Ginna, I recommend that people set raising limits so that that it’s easier to keep the habitats clean and raise/release healthy butterflies. I don’t recommend or share info that encourages people to breed butterflies on their own. In the gulf states and other warm weather regions there are potential issues with non-native milkweed, but one issue that’s not often discussed is that it can be difficult to establish native milkweed in these regions…hopefully you will have success with the native options you choose and the efforts to spread more native milkweed across these regions will be a successful one.

       One thing the scientific rarely acknowledges is the positive affect that raising butterflies can have on the monarch population, attributing any positive population growth to planting more milkweed. It’s estimated less than 5% of monarchs survive outdoors, but when raised in a healthy environment indoors, that survival rate can soar to over 90%. With those statistics, it’s not hard to imagine that many people coming together to raise just a few butterflies can make a serious difference.

39. In Gainesville FL it was our first year raising caterpillars. We released 45-50 healthy monarchs. My 5 year granddaughter became an expert at gender i.d. Unfortunately, lost about 20 to apparent OE. I think I got some infected plants from South Florida in a milkweed emergency. Now I know to quarantine any new plants in the future. We released our last monarch October 6. Plan to do better data collection next year and tag them. Thank you for your informative posts. Annie

40. My last one hatched Oct 9 and did not have enough fluid in its belly to fully fill out the lower wings, so it’s slightly crumpled. I nourished it and pondered about euthanizing it for a couple of days, then decided to take it outside to see what it could really do. I did so on Oct 12 and let it rest on my finger.It then “took off” and flew out of sight towards the trees, fare well # 8. Now I’m an empty nester alas. I will do this again next year.

    1. PS, this was in Gilford,NH

41. My second year of raising Monarchs — successfully raised and released 49. I lost a dozen to OE, but after talking to our local botanical garden Monarch expert, I know what I need to do to minimize that next year. I am still learning how to raise them and I am planting tons of multiple varieties of milkweed for next year!

42. I had a wonderful season! Found my first black swallowtail caterpillars and released those! This was my first time to find Monarch eggs! To be able to watch the eggs transform stage by stage was awesome! All in all I released 50 Monarchs! Lost count on males or females! Had 7 casualties. Springfield,Mo. Thanks Tony for all the info and help!

43. This is an update of my September 30th report. I live in San Diego County in a community called Hidden Meadows. I had released 19 butterflies in late September and had two batches of cats in a wood and screen cage using large potted milkweed. The second group were younger and were housed on unground milkweed. I ‘bagged’ the milkweed patch (using fine agri-netting) after discovering a few dozen eggs in late September. The first batch of 25 on the potted plants started hatching early this month. After the first few successful releases I had 4 weak hatchings in a row. They had either underdeveloped wings or bent wings and could not fly. I euthanized them. I had 2 successful releases yesterday. I have 39 chrysali fed in my outdoor cage. 4 days ago I discovered a volunteer plant in the yard that was loaded with eggs, so I brought them inside, made an incubator and hatched 94 cats. I will raise them in the house with potted plants and cutting.s. They are a bit late in the season but hopefully our California sunshine will last the month it will take to get them to the release point. Wish me luck.

44. I live in Orient, Ohio, and this is my third season raising Monarchs and participating in Monarch Watch’s waystation program. This is my first season tagging captive-reared Monarchs. I was able to successfully raise, tag, and release seventeen Monarchs; eight males and nine females (I ordered my tags too late to use on the previously released Monarchs). Everyone in the household was excited, as was our six-year old neighbor!

    My success rate was about 62%. 🙁 I had twenty-seven cats die at various stages; however, none turned black. My best guess is they died of dehydration. The milkweed the cats were eating was healthy, so I didn’t change it everyday since there were still healthy leaves to eat. I will, in the future, use smaller cuttings and change them more frequently to avoid such untimely deaths. I had three chrysalides fail to eclose; two were liquified and one was fully formed but failed to eclose. I had a female eclose but fall before her wings dried, so she had a folded wing and could not fly. I kept her in a separate cage with fresh-cut flowers until she died.

    Tony’s website has been my number one go-to site for information about raising Monarchs! I am passionate about raising Monarchs and have shared that enthusiasm with anyone who will listen! I have shared Tony’s site with many of my friends and they too, have gotten “hooked” on saving the Monarchs and starting a butterfly garden.

    Thank you, Tony, for providing such an informational site. I am hoping my numbers will increase each year with personal lessons learned and those learned of fellow butterfly mommies and daddies!

45. Bob Johnson, Newark, Ohio.This is my first year for raising Monarchs. My last release was 10/13/17. My totals are smaller than most but every little bit helps.14 Females and 10 Males were released. I had some heartbreak when a total of 9, 3 Females and 6 Males failed to emerge properly.I have several color variety of milkweed, orange, white and pink all tropical I also have the common milkweed. Things I have learned do not over mist, be very gentle and patient in transferring catillerpillers from leaves. I did not have much success in raising from eggs. My best is finding them in the first instar stage or older. I think ventilation is also important. I stated with plastic bowls with small netting over openings. Mid season I made the openings larger and limited number of caterpillars per container. Any helping hints would be appreciated, I am still learning. 73% survivor score.

46. This year my mother and I raised and released 58 monarchs. They were half and half female and male. We did loose some due to running out of milkweed. Next year, we will be growing at lot more milkweed! We’re in southeast Georgia.

47. This morning we took a fresh out Monarch butterfly to grand opening of new nature center building at College Station, Tx in Lick Creek Park for A&M Garden Club butterfly booth display. We had found chrysalis a week ago. This was an event hit. This was probably the most photographed Monarch in history. He was admired by children and adults – many came back to observe how long it would stay and then where it would go. Park had new established butterfly garden in bloom all ready.

48. We live in Rosemount, MN. This is our first experience.
    2 unexplained deaths — caterpillars
    3 healthy males
    3 healthy females
    1 “less robust” female

    My husband, Frank, and I released 7 butterflies this year between July 8 and October 7; four females and three males. We raised 6 from caterpillars; the seventh was from a chrysalis we found hanging on the vinyl siding near the common milkweed plants.
    The last butterfly was not robust like her predecessors, it appears that she “fell out” of her chrysalis on to the floor of the enclosure. Her right leg was deformed; walking and grasping was difficult. Perhaps I should have euthanized her, but my heart wouldn’t allow it. She flew away and I can only hope she survived.

    We are planning for next year and intend to learn more so that we can help more Monarchs grow and survive.

49. The temperature is dipping here in Hampton Virginia into the 60’s at night and the winds have freshened along our coast sometimes above 20 mph. The wife and I have released. 198 monarchs so far with 25 pupas still to eclose. Tachinid flies are now killing over 50% of 4th and 5th instar cats we bring in waaay up from almost none less than 3 weeks ago. We found that keeping one cat in each pint plastic container with mesh top works well. I could quickly see from frass if the cat was in trouble. Its also easier for me to clean containers and reload with milkweed. No escapees. Releasing was a snap. This is my 1st year raising monarchs and the whole neighborhood “bought in” to the idea. I labelled plants as an educational tool, encouraged youngsters to name each butterfly and mentioned some butterfly folklore which was interesting. My garden (really the neighborhood garden) was neglected when we volunteered to take it over. I chose to have tropical milkweed varieties and later added tuberosa. I estimate we have 80 milkweed plants in the 70 x 25 foot equivilent sunny space plus butterfly bushes and other nectar plants. Monarch eclosings began July 30th, spiked the end of August and were steady most of September with 4 or 5 eclosures most days. September 30th we released. 12 and October 3rd topped 15. Milkweed supply was enough but barely. I am expanding the garden to add more milkweed and other butterfly host and nectar plants for next year. Since we live in a cluster home community it was important to have everyone “buy in” to the butterfly experience, which they have. The Monarch Watch sign in the garden is a symbol of pride and commitment for Inlet Point. That makes my job a lot easier knowing other in our community wish to continue enjoying the monarchs.

    1. Where can I get a Monarch watch sign?

       1. MonarchWatch.org

50. My 6th/7th grade science class found 4 monarch eggs. They kids, all urban kids, were fascinated and put their hearts into the caring for the butterflies in all four stages. Following the advice of another butterfly grower, we used binder clips to hang the chrysalides. One of the chrysalis tips was clipped off, the liquid leaked out, and it died. I would never use this method to hang the pupae again. The kids also became over-zealous about putting flowers in the hatching cage, which introduced bugs to a meat source, and killed another chrysalis. The first two butterflies were set free, and were healthy and happy to fly away. While setting two Monarchs free doesn’t seem like a great success, the kids were proud, cared about the environment; the use of pesticides and herbicides, and all planted milkweed so they could continue their Monarch conservation next year.

51. This is my first year of raising monarchs. I’m in MN outside of Minneapolis. I’ve had pollinator flowers and milkweed in my yard for several years and usually would see some monarchs and caterpillars. It seemsed like all of the caterpillars were prayed upon so I decided late this year to start collecting the caterpillars and keep them safe. I had 5 caterpillars this year and all successfully reached adulthood. I set the last one free last week. All females. I’m traveling to the butterfly sanctuary in Mexico to visit this year and am really excited for that. It’s nice to see that so many people care about monarchs and other butterflies and pollinators. I try to be a monarch embassador and tell people who don’t know about their journey and the challenges they face.

    1. Shannon,
       The last Bflues my neighbor and I released had little to nectar on. We released 3-4 batches at the Mn Landscape Arboretum to the delught of other oeople visting the Arb. We worried abt the lack if nectar flowers! Rabbits mowed down our New England Asters! There sre not many fliwer gardens around here! I am going to rause lots if Mexican Sunflowers to pass around next year. Wushing to encourage more Churches and municipal garden clubs to plant more nectar flowers…too many showy dounle flowers in those beds that are not nectar sources! Still, so happy for all the interest and info avsilable from Tony and others!

52. This is our first year being “actively” involved, even though we live 109% organically on a hobby Farm/Garden in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and have lots of Birds and Butterflies! We have followed Hummingbird migrations for decades, and I became very concerned for the Monarchs and Bees as well.

    I am out every morning and evening watching this year’s migration…I even had female Monarchs this morning, 10/14. Due to the warmer weather, our Butterfly Garden, and specifically the Mexican Sunflowers, are attracting them. Every year we plan to do more, and will be planting COPIOUS amounts of Milkweed in Spring 2018!

    THANK YOU for educating the masses. ?

    Photos are on my FB page for public viewing.

53. I released 55 Monarchs this year, largely due to the fact that I brought them inside. I couldn’t believe the difference it made. I did lose 2 caterpillars to accidents and had several eggs that never hatched. Only later did I find out that I should have been spritzing the eggs every day. I already planted more flowers that the butterflies love, one being Blazing Star plants. In the Spring I will start Mexican Sunflowers indoors and will plant them outside the end of MA, which is planting time here is Western Massachusetts. Thank you for all your tips and advice!!!

54. Here in Canton, OH, my husband and I had a record year! This is our third year raising monarchs, and we had a total of 92 for the season:55 males and 37 females. Our biggest issue this year was running out of food, largely due to pests. Next year, we won’t have that problem, thanks to the great info I’ve learned on your site and from fellow monarch lovers. We’re looking forward to an even better season next year.

55. This was my first year raising Monarchs. I had been researching the process here and there for the past year and have been aware if the decline for a while. I was looking cky enough to find a randim common milkweed plant in my yard ine night in June. I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a look to see if there were any eggs…there was one! And I instantly became addicted. I would stop by local parks that I knew had milkweed and look for eggs. From August 11-October 10 I released 54 beautiful Monarchs; 31 male and 23 female. There were a couple of cats that didnt make it at different stages but I didn’t track that. I will next year though!

    1. I’m located in Wausau, WI

56. I am from Decatur, Alabama and this is my 1st attempt to raise Monarch butterflies. I released my last one Saturday Oct.. 7. So excited and they were all on my milk swampweed. So amazing to see them go through all the stages. I am already missing them.

57. I live in Green Bay, WI. Starting in August, I collected 82 eggs & caterpillars from plants in my garden & roadside near my home. I lost my first 2 babies that eclosed in our gazebo. I left them with flowers & nectar for food when I left for an overnight trip. When I returned, only their wings were left scattered on the floor. I think a mouse got them. I decided I could not raise them in the gazebo & raised the remaining 81 in pop-ups in my home. I only had one death – a chrysalis that turned black & didn’t eclose.

    I tagged 50 for the migration.

    Summary: healthy 42 males & 37 females released

58. This year I released 44 monarchs. I found all the eggs on milkweed in our yard, along with a few first instar caterpillars. The swamp milkweed offered the most eggs this year, unlike prior years where common milkweed was the most productive.

    Thank you for offering many helpful hints along with answering many questions along the way. It’s nice to be a member of a community that is working to help these lovely butterflies.

59. This year, I raised and released 25 butterflies, 15 male and 10 female between mid August and mid October. I lost 5. One first instar disappeared. One second instar died with no explanation. One butterfly died mysteriously in the butterfly cage before release. One new chrysalis went splat when a caterpillar ate the stem it decided to hang from. I intended to move it as soon as chrysalis formed but it was too late. One butterfly was deformed with probable OE and was euthanized. A few others may have had it too. One had part of chrysalis around the body. I need to find out more about recognizing OE before releasing. Unless it’s obvious I’m sometimes not sure. I bleached all cages.

60. Lancaster PA – Our Monarch adventure began around August 27th, when I saw a caterpillar on milkweed while on a walk. A quick google search helped me to discover that human intervention might actually increase this caterpillar’s chance of survival, so a day later, I went back, found the caterpillar, and got appropriate supplies to care for it. Gathering milkweed for that caterpillar resulted in finding a total of nine caterpillars over the next several weeks.

    All nine pupated. One looked like it might have a parasite or something. In trying to “rehang” chrysalides in segregated pop up cages resulted in a loss of two of those chrysalides, one healthy and one apparently “contaminated.”

    Between September 18 and October 5, we hatched seven female Monarchs. (Is it unusual that they were all female?) We were able to share these seven sisters with the community in various ways, with visits to schools and to a post wedding party.

    The Sixth Sister was clearly not healthy. She was small with an enlarged abdomen, moved as if she was “drunk,” and was unable to fly. We read that she probably had a low level parasitic infection. In a moment of poignancy, we took her back to the special needs middle school class which had released one of her sisters a week earlier. She perched on their fingers, and allowed them to handle her, attempting to fly without escaping. I explained to the children that even some butterflies have handicaps and special needs. She would never fly to Mexico, but she could enjoy interacting with them in a way that her healthy sisters could not. The children named her Miracle. She died two days later, shortly after the Seventh Sister hatched in front of that same group of children. (These sisters were kept segregated at all times – and all pop-up mesh cages have been cleaned!)

    The Seventh Sister was named Destiny, and we released her in warm sunshine on October 7th.

    Next year, we will plant milkweed, and will tag any Monarchs we raise. It was a wonderful experience.

    1. Heidi, I loved reading your story! I am an educator and appreciated the life lesson you were able to share with special needs children. I absolutely loved the names the children chose!

       Thank you again for sharing! I hope to read about your milkweed success stories next season!

61. I live in Cortlandt Manor NY, about 30 miles north of NYC, and this is my second year raising Monarchs. I have been purchasing plants (including several varieties of perennial and annual milkweed) from Rose Franklin for several years but decided last summer to attend one of her butterfly seminars and also bring home 20+ Monarch eggs on a tropical milkweed plant and 2 medium sized mesh rearing cages, as we had not seen a Monarch in our area for many years. I also scanned around for more detailed information about successful rearing practices and fortunately came upon Tony’s site and ebooks, which I have used heavily. Last year I had almost no problems and released 21 healthy Monarchs in spite of the fact that I underestimated the importance of giving them significant time in the sun before releasing. I also was terrified of harming them when picking them up, but this year I used Tony’s “finger express” technique and was also much more comfortable when clasping wings, which lowered the stress level for all of us. This year I again purchased eggs (30+) from Rose Franklin in late July but was amazed to discover soon after that a handful of Monarchs had arrived in my garden. It took me a while to start hunting/gathering–and I had to purchase more milkweed– but I just released my last 3 wild Monarchs today, for a total of 33 from Rose and 61 wild. I have found that it works well for me to have several small and medium sized mesh cages on hand(I now have 10), so that I can have smaller groups in each cage, transfer plants/caterpillars between 2 cages for easier cleaning and checking each day, keep chrysalises separate from caterpillars, and have a designated cage for release . One of the biggest learning curves for me has been to understand and trust the process and to be less intrusive. What a joyful experience!

    1. How many milkweed plants do you have to get that type of return? I cannot imagine feeding that many little mouths. I only found 23 eggs this fall on my milkweed? Thanks, nan

       1. Hi, Nan–
          Most of the eggs/small caterpillars I gathered were on about a dozen well-grown tropical milkweed plants in a particularly sunny part of my garden, and I could have brought in so many more but knew I wouldn’t be able to care well for large numbers, so I only looked sporadically. I did discover quite late in the season–when some of the foliage in my packed front garden was drying out– that I had at least 10 instar 4 fatties munching on what still remained of some large common milkweed plants I had let reseed (they had been well hidden), and I couldn’t bear to leave them out so brought them in, knowing they might have issues. All of them munched like crazy on the fresh tropical milkweed I still had left (like they were in a spa!), and all were released earlier this week. I’ve been lucky, for sure. I haven’t thought through yet what to do next season, with the hope of again having wild Monarchs in residence. I calculated last year that each Monarch went through a fairly well grown tropical milkweed plant apiece in their mesh cages indoors, and I’m guessing we had about the same result this year, so we needed quite a bit of milkweed for inside and to continue to have some plants, in addition to our perennial milkweeds, outside as well. Our area has become increasingly urbanized over time and there is a lot of spraying going on so I’m still planning to purchase my annual milkweed from reliable sources and am going to try my hand at seeds this year as well in an effort to keep down the costs. It got pretty wild and crazy there for a while, but what an amazing, gratifying experience.

62. I live in Atco, NJ, we still have Monarchs flying around our Zinnias & Mexican Sunflowers! My last release was October 2, 2017. Thank you Tony, could not have done this with out your clear directions & great new cage. Large one made it possible to house everyone! I had 2 smaller cages for Neborns, & eventuality drying out, hanging adults before release. I gathered a total of 133 caterpillars, successfully realeasted a total 117. 62 Male, 55 Female, 16 Black Death. With a third year of Milkweed growth I had plenty of leaves every day. The tubes kept the leaves fresh overnight while they munched away. Keeping the cage clean was a cinch since it was large enough to move everyone around w/o disturbing ones on the ceiling! I followed your weekly updates, learning something new every time. My grandsons from FL were in NJ during the hurricane so the were able to release many along with me. I share all your knowledge with them & they put it to use in Fl. This year I had the confidence to bring in nine Swallow Tail eggs & small pillars. They are happy on their branches in a cool spot awaiting their Spring transformation. What a wonderful way to spend my retirement! Growing a beautiful gardens, full of living , greatefull guest. My motivation is mainly to see that there are plenty of Monarchs for my grandsons to enjoy well into their adult life and beyond ! Thank you for helping make that a reality!

63. I live in Marietta, GA in East Cobb County approx 25 miles north of Atlanta. This is the first time that I’ve raised monarchs. Two yrs ago, while at the Hendersonville, NC Garden Jubilee, I had heard about the monarch’s plight. I bought a packet of common milkweed seeds & statified them in a repurposed flat. The following spring I set the flat out & lo & behold I had seedlings! I’d never stratified seeds before so I really didn’t think I would have success. I planted the seedlings & they grew but sadly I didn’t see any eggs or cats. I was disappointed to say the least. But now looking back, it was a good thing because I wouldn’t have had enough milkweed to feed these hungry beasts. This spring, early May, I found cats but I wasn’t able to bring them inside before they disappeared except for one. I brought it inside but it stopped eating & died. All summer I saw no eggs & no cats. I often wondered if the monarchs don’t hang out here in Georgia during the summer. Then suddenly on September 6th I found 12 cats in various stages! On Sept 10th I found 4 more. Hurricane Irma hit on Sept 11 so I kept looking despite the weather. On Sept 15th & 17th I found 3 more cats for a total of 19. I must say my milkweed was looking pretty hated at this point. It was being destroyed by the aphids so I had to perform some serious damage control by meticulously & carefully washing them off. All 19 cats survived, formed into chrysalides, & I just released the last 2, very relucantly. We’ve been weathering Hurricane Nate & it was cloudy but I gave them both a good drink of my honey solution before releasing. I kept all containers clean everyday & washed the leaves & stem cuttings in a 5% bleach solution. Of the 19 butterflies, 11 were females & 8 were males. This has been a great experience for my 11-yr old & me. It has been an exciting month & I miss them terribly! Can’t wait for next year!

64. Reporting in from Sussex County in northern New Jersey where I released my 148th monarch today. In total, 72 males and 76 females released between 9 August and 9 October. I had six losses – 4 cats inexplicably died in 3rd instar; 2 fell while pupating, damaging the soft chrysalises beyond hope; and one butterfly emerged too weak to cling to anything.

    I had an excellent supply of Common Milkweed from a local organic farm, which allowed me to take care of more caterpillars. And, as a bonus, I got the owners of the farm started on raising monarchs – they are now hooked and have already purchased two of your enclosures.

    Although over 50% of my butterflies were from eggs, I also found quite a few 1st and 2nd instars in my garden and even a few 3rd instars – in spite of doing what I thought were very careful egg searches every day!

    I had several eggs that had apparently been parasitized by Wasps, but it was a very small percentage. No signs of tachinid parasitism.

    All in all, a very good year.

    By the way, I like the larger floral tubes!

65. I live in Chicago. Three years ago, I planted a couple of varieties of common milkweed in our standard small city lot, because I’m an artist who uses its fibers. This year the plants matured and brought monarchs, so I raised them for the first time (except for a few in way back in grade school.)

    I successfully released 113 over the summer. All but 10 eclosed and were released after mid-August. The last one flew off on October 4.

    Some of the eggs didn’t hatch and I also lost a number of cats in the first instar. I didn’t keep track of the early fatalities, though. After they made it to the second instar, I was very lucky to only lose three: one chrysalis turned a strange color and never eclosed, one cat had a major malfunction while pupating, and one male emerged with wings that were curled. He could not fly and lived in the garden until he died.

    I had been harvesting milkweed for years before growing it, and the fiber is best just after the fall equinox. It was very interesting to note that all the last cats pupated just a few days before that. I’m looking forward to next year!

66. Tony,
    I live in Faribault, Minnesota and released 73 butterflies this year as compared to 49 last year. All except for a few I found as eggs in my butterfly garden and brought them inside to raise. I lost five caterpillers; one to the horrible tachinid flies, one to bad milkweed, and three to unknown causes (one looked like it had been bitten by something). I also lost one chrysalis; I think it was bumped when the chrysalis was still soft.
    My final butterfly hatched yesterday, October 8th, and is still on a plant outside my front door waiting to fly away. I’m worried that she won’t warm up enough to fly today, and we have a frost warning for tonight. This caterpillar spun her chrysalis when she was about half the size of other caterpillers when they spun, and I was concerned as to size, the viability of the chrysalis, and the lateness of the season. When she hatched she was a very small butterfly, almost a miniature monarch. I hope she makes it at this late cold date!
    I love all the informative information on your website and have learned a lot from these posts. I incorporated the idea of eggs and tiny caterpillers being housed in food container nurseries; for me this worked far better than putting milkweed leaves in floral tubes.
    Thanks for all the helpful information and wish me luck with my last small butterfly!

67. This was my first year raising in Southern California, coastal Los Angeles. I had 587 releases, 135 deaths, and gave away 1252 eggs and cats to others to raise. I didn’t have enough milkweed so I paid for shipping of leaves from fellow FB Monarch group members. I figure I spent $1 per Monarch so it was quite costly and a lot of work, especially since I work full time. I had an 81% success rate. There was a lot of Tachinid fly of the cats I found as cats and brought in, and there was an outbreak of NPV from some leaves I received from a different source than my usual one. I usually do not bleach eggs or leaves, but that batch I should have. I found they love my Tithonia the best. And that they prefer A. Currasavica (Silky Gold mostly, but also Tropical and Scarlet) and Physocarpus (AKA Hairy Balls) the best, and I offered 10 different kinds of milkweed. I learned that covering the milkweed with netting wasn’t a good idea (to reduce the # of eggs) because the aphids got out of control and killed 1 or 2 plants. I learned to plant much more milkweed!! Our season is not over but I had to stop due to going on vacation for 2 weeks. I hope to only bring in 25 at a time next time, because having 100 at a time was really hard work!

68. This was my second year of raising monarch butterflies in central NJ. I released 30 females successfully. No males. I just released my last one this morning. Sadly, I also found two chrysalis’ in the garden that look diseased. Both have an odd Brownish color in the body and all yellow at the top. Lesson learned this year is to plant more milkweed in different areas around the yard to grow earlier in the spring for the early monarchs. Hopefully this will help me to increase the number of monarchs raised and released next year. Looking forward to raising on again in 2018!

69. I live up in Oak Grove MN just north of Minneapolis and you. I traveled a lot this year and wasn’t going to raise any butterflies. Once I was home from my all my trips it was the end of July and while we were at a friend’s house I watched monarchs flying around and decided to check his milkweed. As I was looking at one plant a monarch flew over and laid an egg right in front of me. I knew I had to take that one home with me so I checked the other plants over and ended up with 17 eggs and one instar 1 caterpillar. Now I was looking for more eggs and collecting milk weed. I didn’t have very good luck with the first eggs and caterpillars and lost quite a few when they were forming their chrysalis or when they enclosed they were very weak. The first instar 1 caterpillar I found was able to emerge perfect and I released her on Sept 2nd. Then I had lost of loses but occasionally one would emerge and I could release him. I did check of OE and didn’t find any in any of my butterflies.
    On August 12th I found 5 eggs at my son’s and 5 more eggs from other places. I kept those separate from my first group and all 10 of those butterflies had no issues and I was even able to release 5 butterflies at once. I released my last 2, who were males, on Sept 26th.
    I don’t know what went wrong with the first group but I kept the last group separate and never touched them. I was able to keep the cage clean and add more milkweed without bothering them too much. They were all together in the same cage.
    In the end I released 17 butterflies, 9 female and 8 males. I’m glad I ended on a good note so I’m looking forward to raising more next year.
    Thank you for all the great information over the year.

70. I have been raising Monarch butterflies since I first discovered the story of their “miracle” of life in a Little Golden Book when I was 8 years old. Flash forward 46 years and on October 5, 2017, the last of my Monarch butterflies flew the coop. It was a great productive and healthy year for Monarchs in the Allentown New Jersey area compared to a very dismal and late start and extremely late finish last year when my husband and I drove down to the University of Delaware’s butterfly garden on November 3, 2016 to release our last 2 VERY late season newly hatched Monarchs. I did not keep counts in previous years and am new to this fantastic website. This year, I successfully raised a total of 333 Monarch butterflies with a total of 304 hatching into healthy adult Monarchs – 91% success rate. The large majority of the healthy adults were taken in as eggs and/or newly hatched first instar cats. The older last instar cats that I brought in were the ones that were infected and did not hatch due to infection or parasite. I’m thrilled to have been able to help “raise the migration”. This site is a perfect tool for educating and promoting the survival of the Monarch butterfly. Thank you for all you do!

    304 Healthy adult Monarch butterflies
    22 Did not hatch due to infection via virus/black death
    4 Did not hatch due to parasites/wasps
    3 Fell during hatching resulting in wing injury and were euthanized due to injury

71. I released my last monarch today here in northern Indiana. It was #106. Released 49 males and 57 females. This was my first successful year. Last two years I took in at least 80 eggs/cats but most died and only released 3 each of those years. I did have some losses this year: some eggs didn’t hatch, few cats turned black in early instar stage, 3 chrysalis never eclosed, 1 chrysalis was deformed, 3 butterflies fell to bottom of cage and by time found them, their wings were crumpled and nothing could be done, couple of butterflies looked fine but couldn’t fly.
    Main problem was running out of milkweed even though had plenty of plants. Rust type fungus took over the swamp, common and tropical kinds by end of August even though had patches in 4 different areas of yard. Container mw also got the fungus. Fortunately a friend told me of a patch of common mw by the zoo so I went there several times cutting stalks and then taking leaves off stalks, washing them and putting in zip lock bags in refrig. Last group of leaves lasted up to 3 weeks but didn’t need to use them all. Thanks to Tony and his website much is learned.

72. This is my first year raising monarchs in Fuquay-Varina North Carolina zone 7b/8a. In spring I planted a garden and filled it with all kinds of different milkweed species and flowers. At first I thought I would see tons of monarchs laying eggs on my milkweed. April went by May, then June, July, August and then September and then I saw my first monarch of the year!It was a female monarch laying a ton of eggs on my common milkweed!! I was so exited to see a monarch laying eggs. That week hurricane Irma dumped rain on my milkweed for a few days. When the rain finally stopped I checked on the eggs, but a lot of the eggs had been washed away by all the rain and the wind had blown some leaves off my milkweed. I only found 5 eggs? I brought the eggs inside, and the eggs hatched a few days later. I fed them and they all made there chrysalis. I had 3 healthy females and 1 healthy male. I had 1 male that emerged from it’s chrysalis with whitish orangish wings that never dried properly. Now that I know only a few monarchs fly threw my yard in the fall I will consintrate on growing all kinds of milkweeds and gaining more knowledge on milkweed ?

73. I live in Orange County, California. This is my first full summer raising monarchs. Last August a friend gave me a tropical milkweed and a balloon milkweed. There were many monarch eggs deposited on both plants starting in about May. But as the spring/summer progressed, both plants were beset by aphids and other predators. I would see eggs, but no caterpillars. Or maybe see one or two tiny caterpillars, then they disappeared. In May I finally decided to raise them inside. I have a 10-gallon aquarium and some whiskey shot glasses. I brought the eggs in on the leaves, but the in shot glasses with a tiny bit of water, as you would cut flowers, and placed the shot glasses in the aquarium. I have a garden window in my kitchen and I keep the aquarium with the monarchs in there from egg to chrysallis. I bring in leaves from the tropical milkweed, wash it carefully to remove the predators, pat it a little but leave plenty of moisture on the leaves for the cats. This has been successful for me this season.

    From May until the end of September I gathered 58 eggs. I had 9 deaths from various reasons, 40 healthy monarchs eclosed and flew away after getting nourishment from my tropical milkweed, which due to our mild weather is producing plenty of blossoms and nectar. As of today, I have 9 chrysalides hanging outside in my schefflera tree.

    I keep the pupa inside while they are eating. They are in the aquarium with a net covering the top. When they are ready, they have been attaching to the net. When the chrysalis is hardened for at least 3 days, I carefully cut the piece of net to which the chrysalis is attached and attach the chrysalis to a thin dowel rod, using strips of blue painter tape. Dowel rod is 1/4″ x 18″. Usually there have been at least 4 chrysalides ready to hang outside at one time. I space them about 4″ apart. I tie the dowel to a horizontal branch which is about 2″ in diameter, using thick twine. The branch I choose has nothing below it, so there is plenty of room for the wings to unfold when the butterfly ecloses. This has worked very well for me this season.

    The count of male to female is: male-12, female-11, unsexed 17. At first I was not sexing the adults, then later on some of them eclosed and flew away before I could get a look. I am a late riser, and some of them were out by 7:30 a.m.

    I let my milkweed propogate naturally and I have plants coming up. I plan to put a couple in containers so they can be moved to different parts of the yard. My yard is small, so it will be a challenge. I plan to get a larger or a second aquarium for next year. The 10-gallon sometimes was crowded and the pupa were bopping heads over the same leaf sometimes.

    Good luck to all the monarch caretakers and good luck to the migration 2017! I look forward to next spring.

74. I live in Clarksville, Maryland. First, I have to say I am thrilled to be a part of this group. I have learned SO much from you Tony – thank you!!! This was my first year raising monarchs and I am hooked!!! I planted a few milkweed plants and really didn’t expect much this year. My husband and I came back from vacation and I had three caterpillars. Over the next several weeks I brought in 15 more. I released 18 beautiful and healthy monarchs.
    My milkweed was infested with aphids but I followed your advice, Tony, and gently washed each milkweed cutting before placing in the butterfly cube (which by the way, works great!) Plan on buying a small cube for next year.
    I can’t wait for next year and hopefully raise even more monarchs!!

75. This summer I rescued 353 eggs and caterpillars. Last year was 187. I couldn’t raise them all myself. Since I teach classes on how to raise Monarchs, I have a network of people that helped to raise them. It felt like a full-time job, communicating with people and setting up times to come over and get some eggs, not to mention “911 caterpillar calls”! I had 50 new students this year, and some took 2-3 eggs at a time, while others branched out and collected their own eggs, so I can’t imagine how many we all collectively raised. I released 70 myself. The eggs I collected all came from my yard and block. Several neighbors let me look through their milkweed any time.
    Although I have a boulevard full of milkweed, Plants that were by themselves and small seedings were big egg attracters. Every fall I pull up the seedlings and plant new seeds in shady places.
    Lesson learned is to keep educating people on how to take care of their milkweed to attract egg -layers. I spent hours each week wiping off aphids with a bucket of water and a soft handi-wipe. I cut back my milkweed right after it bloomed so newer shoots would be ready for the next generation.
    If you grow it, they will come!

76. in Toronto Ontario I collected many eggs from milkweed in my front yard garden. I have never found a single caterpillar in my milkweed plants, so I suspect they are immediately taken by predators, or maybe even the eggs are eaten if I do not collect them soon after being left by the Monarch mother.
    This was my first year doing this. I had one batch of caterpillars of various ages that died, very sad. They just stopped eating, and gradually started to dry up. I am not sure why. Other caterpillars before and after were very healthy. I released 5 butterflies, 2 at end of September for migration, and 3 earlier in the summer. About 5 caterpillars died. I had 2 butterflies with slightly bent wings.
    One lesson I learned, was to have something for new butterflies to climb up, in case the fall when drying their wings. Like a few sticks. Otherwise if they lay on their wet wings too long, they will have bent wings. If you catch it soon enough, you can apply a bit of pressure with fingers to unbend the wings, and they will further straighten as they dry once the butterfly is in hanging position again, and with sunshine they will pump and spread their wings which also helps to straighten them.
    I also learned if a small part is bent on one wing and will not straighten, the wings can be trimmed a small bit to match and remove the bent portion, and that will make flying easier. So, it is crucial when butterflies emerge, that they hang with enough space around for the wings.
    We had bad weather, a cold snap one day, then rain and hail the next, so I learned to feed my butterfly while waiting for good weather, by mixing honey and water and using a toothpick to unfurl the proboscis into a honey-water mixture, because I was not sure if my flowers in yard had sufficient nectar so late in the season. It was amazing and so gratifying to see the butterfly feeding. The next warm day he took flight, and it was good to know he was well nourished for his long journey.

77. I left a comment a few weeks ago but I have an update and a lesson learned for sure. Through out this whole process of raising caterpillars my cat never touched the tank the caterpillars were in or the pop up hamper I used for the chrysalis. That is until the last 6 were ready to emerge. I had 19 total chrysalis one turned black and never hatched out and I had to put down 2 because of the cat. #13 hatched out while i was at work as many of them had before but for whatever reason the cat just couldn’t resist this time. He had knocked the whole thing on the floor. There were loose sticks wIthaca chrysalis on them and a poor butterfly hanging on the inside. Her wings looked pretty bad but I didn’t know the extent of the damage till the next morning. The rest hatched out just fine and very fiesty which i was realieved about. But I also hadn’t noticed that one of the chrysalis was missing until I heard a strange crinkling sound coming from behind the shelf the night i had released the others. The chrysalis had fallen behind the shelf and the poor butterflys wings couldn’t dry properly. I felt so bad that I had to put down two otherwise healthy butterflies it brought me to tears. So word to the wise don’t trust your pets to not mess with the butterflys even if they have been fine before like I said 12 butterflys in 2 different waves and he never touched them until the last 6? So my final tally was 16 butterflys released 9 males and 7 females. As my son said “Have fun in Mexico!”

78. This is somewhat odd because I have understood that monarch caterpillars will only eat Asclepias (milkweed) species. In the the groundcover around my small patch of Mexican Butterflly Weed there is another native plant, Commelina erecta (dayflower or widow’s tears). I noticed a caterpillar hanging out on one of these plants and saw that the leaves had been eaten. I never saw the caterpillar actually eating the leaves. When the caterpillar went to pupate shortly afterward, it died after attaching itself. Is it possible that it poisoned itself by eating the wrong plant?

    1. Hi Rob, I’ve never heard of this plant before. It’s more likely the caterpillar crawled to that plant if it ran out of milkweed, or looking for a spot to pupate. You never know what pathogens or predators it could have been exposed to outdoors…

       1. There was still lots of milkweed and the plant that it went to pupate on was a Daylily. It was likely a coincidence. Just seemed odd to find it on a plant in the groundcover with the leaves recently eaten by something.

79. First year raising Monarchs…Intensive learning (with your help) during this process….really only thought I would raise a just a few to get hang of it this year…got the enclosed mesh cages, flower tubes for clippings, even hand held dirt devil to clean up the poo (first surprise is how much those big cats can poo!)…however, had a couple of surprises when I brought home a few milkweed plants from organic nursery…placed them out of sight in screened in porch for extra food in case I needed it…and ended up with chrysalis everywhere! Final count was over 100 successfully raised and released…though, since I am on west coast of Florida….not sure where they go…or if they go anywhere at all.
    One concern, that I hope to address with new garden plantings, was lack of nectar plants in this area for them to feed on once released…I had clipped the milkweed I had to feed cats…so very few flowers there…and this area is currently under heavy development so their natural habitat is being wiped out…I sense more study coming my way in regards to other plants native to this area that they can feed on…

80. This was our first year raising Monarchs. In 1960ish my Grade 7 Science teacher had us do a project on the life cycle of the Monarchs. I guess that’s where this all started. Although we have boated on the Inner Bay at Long Point Ontario Canada for the past thirty years or so and we were always seeing Monarch’s travelling over Lake Erie and were impressed by their sense of purpose. Then when we purchased a cottage in Port Dover, I started picking up nature books to share with our Grandchildren. As we have a 10 year old Granddaughter who mentioned a “Journal”, I started one and thirty pages later we are finished for 2017 and very excited about 2018. We will purchase tags next year and participate.
    We found our first eggs (2) July 19, 2017 from Milkweed plants that I had started two years ago from seed. We only found one small caterpillar which we brought in, but it disappeared.
    We did raise 11 eggs, 4 males and 7 females. I did use tape to touch the abdomen of the females and applied them to cardboard cards even though I did not have a microscope to check for OE. It was a practice run for next year. I wasn’t aware of this site at first, but did watch all of Mr. Lund’s Monarch videos and took notes. All the eggs we brought in we treated with a mild bleach solution to try to prevent OE. We used clean take out containers with see through lids for the eggs. We also treated all the leaves from our Milkweed with a different bleach solution to try to prevent NPV Virus. I’m not sure if it was luck, but all our eggs that hatched were successful. I did keep a chart of dates and we released our last Monarch on September 13, 2017. I had read that most Monarchs eclosed between 6-10am so one morning I was up and able to video with my phone the opening of a Monarch to share with our family and friends. I even had a friend bring me an egg. This was a fellow that lived down the street from me when we were in public school and he, too, had done the Monarch project.
    Things I will do differently next year:
    I will start looking for eggs sooner. I will start more butterfly friendly flowers as I was rather dissapointed with my flowers although we have two buddlei (butterfly bushes) which attracted many butterflies
    Several times I thought the caterpillars were ill as there was what looked like frass that was funny looking and long, and later I realized that was a shed skin. When the caterpillars are at their 5th instar I will always make sure they have more than one leaf each overnight. As everyone knows they are voracious eaters. With my last group of cats I kept track and it appears that each cat used four full size leaves from 1st instar to forming the chrysalis. I even took my mesh caterpillar pop up cage when I visited friends to show them what was going on.
    Next year, I’m hoping to have the front opening mesh cage to put the caterpillars in when they reach the 5th instar as my mesh cage opens on the top and I don’t want it to interfer with the “J” hangers.

81. This was my first year raising Monarchs. We live in Middletown NJ. As a first year newbie I made some mistakes. First was not reading all of the articles about raising Monarchs, it would have prevented a lot of problems.
    My going in position was that I would gather all of the cats that I could find on our outdoor milkweed regardless of size and bringing them into our cages. I lost 6 due to black death, and had 5 in chrysalis that were not viable. I also brought in potted butterfly weed plants again causing some problems with insects that were on the plants and I did not see them.
    Another mistake was purchasing potted butterfly weed from local nurseries, although we asked about spraying and informing the owners what we were a Monarch Weigh Station and needed food sources for our monarchs we found that these plants must have been sprayed somewhere along the line. Fortunately we spotted it quickly when a couple of cats died on the purchased plants and quickly removed and disposed of the plants. Orange aphids were also a problem but my wife checked all of our plants daily and was able to successfully keep on top of them with soapy water. Lessons learned and not to be repeated again.
    On a positive note I was able to successfully release 9 females and 2 males. We also have a number of late enclosures outside and around our butterfly weed plants. We were very happy with Butterfly weed seeds purchased from Burpee, Asclepias Tuberosa. It grows over 36” high, has multiple stalks and wonderful flowers which are still in bloom, it is October 2.
    So for next year, going to raise eggs only, no purchased plants and only use cut butterfly weed stalks thoroughly rinsed before bringing in the house.

82. Do to traveling this summer my numbers were down to 62 from 212 last year. I had a great year with only one T fly incident and it was on an older caterpillar I missed. Normally I get the eggs ASAP. I raise the eggs in individual containers until 3rd instar then move 5 to each of my enclosures. I always use mesh, insect proof cubes! Best thing ever to protect the growing caterpillars. No escapes, no predators. I released 39 the last week of September, Mexico bound. Big beautiful Monarchs. Some were as large as my hand. I was in awe. This is my 4th year and every year I still learn something new. This year I concentrated on a nectar garden. What a beautiful sight to behold. Especially on Tithonia! I love your guide and can’t wait for your weekly updates. Thank you for all your help. Kim

83. This was my very first year getting into raising monarchs. Between eggs larva and cats of all sizes I successfully raised and released 47 monarchs. I had no disease and I am more prepared for what is to come next year. I found toward the end of the season my cats were not J’ing properly so I had to help a few out. There are many Monarch Facebook sites that were so helpful throughout this learning process. If there was one thing I learned his year it was that it is necessary to have a monarch community to lean on and ask questions or a friend who knows all about raising them. If I had not had help I would not have been so successful. I am so grateful I was able to find my calling in raising monarchs and because of that I was able to get 6 more of my friends in on it!

84. I released my last one last week, number 60, my most ever.
    I agree with using the small food containers for little ones, much easier to keep track of them. I’d also stress not to trust any milkweed unless you’ve grown it yourself. I ran out of milkweed and had to scramble for some that I thought was safe…it wasn’t. Thirty one were poisoned, luckily all but said recovered.
    I live in SW PA. Last year I had none.

85. I started my butterfly garden in late 2015 by transplanting some common milkweed from a friend’s garden, and have gradually expanded it subsequently by adding Joe Pye plants, tithonia, echinacea, aster, buddlia, black-eyed susans, and several other varieties of asclepius, including a. tuberosa and a. curassavica (which surprised me by surviving the winter here in Hancock, ME [zone 5b]). Tried growing a. purpurascens from seed, but it never did flower.
    During 2016 found just one monarch caterpillar, which did pupate, becoming a beautiful male monarch. Experienced abundant problems with orange-colored aphids on the a. curassavica, which did respond in 2017 to companion planting with marigolds and allium, and have planted several giant allium bulbs for next year.
    Noted the first monarch of 2016 here in Northern Maine in mid-July, a female with tattered wings which looked as if she may have flown from North Carolina, subsequently hung around the garden for ~ 2 weeks, and whom I am convinced was the mother of many of the cats which first started appearing on all varieties of asclepias on August 7th. Brought the cats indoors, raising them in a large mesh cage, and have subsequently succeeded in raising and releasing 43 monarchs during the month of September, 25 if which (13 males and 12 females), were tagged between September 7th and 25th.
    Casualties during the process included 1 caterpillar which crashed to the bottom of the cage, rupturing it’s pupa during formation, and 5 pupae which developed black blotches and failed to develop further, which I believe had been parasitized (by ?tachinid flies or trichogamma wasps). Two pupae which lost their silk “pad” during the process of transferring them from the roof of the cage to a home-made “trapeze” did manage to hatch successfully when placed in a home-made “sling” fashioned by making an appropriately-sized hole in a 3×5 card, which was necessitated by the fact that attempts to attach the black stalk by using superglue failed to adhere to the pupa.
    Overall, the butterfly garden project has proven to be highly successful, and as I am retired, have plans to enlarge the garden and to make a presentation to the local grammar school students in the fall of 2018.

    Thanks greatly for all of the advice on your website and in your Emails, which was found to be invaluable.

    Bruce D

86. Hi Toni,
    Thank you for your insight into raising caterpillars. This has been my second year raising monarchs: In the spring we had about 22 monarchs released & we are still in process of releasing butterflies thus far another 23. ( Our success rate has been amazing with only one sad error as we had two new butterflies in a cage & one tried to climb onto the wings of one beautiful butterfly & scratched a hole in his wing. ) I’ve never before had the spring crop & am amazed that I’m not having more eggs right now as I have plenty of tropical milkweed & some frozen–maybe mother nature is telling us something. Next year I have got to get one of your wonderful cages as I currently use the plastic one’s that I keep covered from the light. Also will plant more milkweed as I doubled my amount this year very well by covering with a shade to protect from our harsh summer heat in STL–grew my torch sunflower there also & it’s 6 feet tall.
    I am currently looking for your article on dividing milkweed plants & can’t find it?
    My Sweet Hubby found a caterpillar in the garden on some parsley I had planted being the faithful husband he promptly brought it indoors only to be told it’s a swallowtail cat which I had never before raised. They are so easy –some parsley & now has formed his chrysalis along with another caterpillar.

87. My fourth year raising and I had a bumper crop of butterflies this year: 536 total; 229 of those migration. Not only collected eggs, but took in a large number of caterpillars of various instars from the garden this year. Knowing some of those would already be infected, I have learned to raise all the cats in cups by themselves and only put them into the big communal cages a few days before they are ready to pupate. It’s much more labor intesive this way, but has the additional advantage of being able to better-manage the food supply by giving them leaf cuttings instead of entire plants. Oh, thanks to this web site I was able to recognize my first case of Trachnid infection and contain that to just the one butterfly.

    Lessons learned: What works for me is to raise cats in isolation for as long as possible; especially if bringing in cats from the wild. Learned my big cage is NOT escape proof, but because they are all late instar cats, they escaped only because they were looking for a place to pupate. Did find a few chrysallides hiddedn around the house, a caterpillar on the wall, and a couple of surprise butterflies fluttering at the windows, but that’s all part of the fun.

88. Linnville, Ohio 43056 First year raising Monarchs to release and we have contributed 17 to the migration group. We got a late start as all eggs seem to have hatched by the time I found out about this wonderful project. We used a large screen cage that is tall enough to hold stems of Milkweed in water bottles. The Milkweed stayed fresh for 2-4 days by making the angular cut at the stem and adding the couple of extra slashes to help absorb water. I took the bottles 3/4 full of fresh water with me to do the cutttings so that they were put in right away. When back home we cleaned off the insects with damp paper towels and made sure there were no spiders, etc. We brought home caterpillars that were anywhere from new hatchling to a few that were within two days of making their chrysalis. We also lightly misted the Milkweed leaves twice daily being careful not to wet the caterpillars nor the resting chrysalis. This helped maintain humidity, not to much however. The project was shared with the children at our church and they too plan to do this next year. All hands on deck, yes? Thank you all for the great information. Shirley

89. I’m close to Cols Ohio. Thus is my first year. I planted 1 common milkweed plant which really multiplied. I successfully released 14 butterflies. 8 girls and 6 boys. I had one very small cat which was lost. I raised them all from caterpillars . I had a 100 percent rate with the exception of the one which was lost. I will be checking your web site for your cages to prevent this next year. I’m collecting seeds from milkweed plants to increase my plsnts and to give others. Can’t wait till next year. Love your site. It’s been so helpful.

90. Here in Central Iowa, I raise monarchs all season long. Got off to a slow start this year compared with last. In 2016, I collected the first eggs on May 31, but this year I didn’t find the first ones until June 17. Despite that, I had a better summer with lower mortality in the cats and none in the chrysalides, though two adults were malformed and had to be euthanized. Last year’s final tally was 97 (after the last 3 chrysalides failed to eclose). Three days ago, I released number 100 for this year. Final tally is 47 females and 53 males. This is my third year of raising and I’ve always had more males than females.

91. I live in Houston, Texas and this is year 2 with Milkweed & Monarchs. I hatched (30) in the Spring and then another 18 this fall. Planted many more milkweed plants where I have 12 Milkweed areas around the property. Saw many “wild” cats that succeeded on their own, yet killed wasps all summer long. Leaving on a business trip soon, but expect to be able to get another batch before season ends for us in Texas.

    Questions: When should I stop collecting eggs & cats? Should I cut down all my milkweed at any point? Thanks (Houston, TX)

    1. Hi Philip…you’re in a region that can potentially support monarchs year round, but you still need to cut back plants at some point to avoid issues with OE spores and other pathogens:

       Fall Gardening Tips

92. This was my first year raising butterflies – 22.

    I had such an amazing time with it that I also started four of my friends with this new hobby.

    I’ll be ready again next year.

93. We released the last of our 12 monarchs on September 25, 2017, in Topeka, Kansas. We kept track of the genders on only the last 8 which were 5 males and 3 females. One other never emerged from the chrysalis after it turned dark. My cats STRONGLY preferred the annual tropical milkweed so I have already taken cuttings for next year’s plants and plan to have more plants and more cats! I love my drawbridge type caterpillar cage that I purchased from you. It made raising cats so much easier and I highly recommend using a cage. Thanks for all the good information Tony!

94. Raised a total of 14 , 9 of which were the season end. Only one didn’t quite finish the crysallis and therefore died. All were beautiful otherwise. I did have a few caterpillars die as well. My best year yet. Thank you for all your emails as I did improve my process by using a container my daughter had from her past teranchula spider, it worked well along with the eggs in small plastic cups with lids and a local flower shop gave me some of those small viles for flowers with the rubber top to keep the leaves fresher. My first year having the migration generation. I was very surprised at how large those caterpillars get, almost twice as big even though the crysallis was about the same size. I am from the suburb of Detroit, Mi.

95. We went from 22 last year to 107 this year!! We did lose more than last year but I brought in some larger caterpillars which turned out to be a mistake. We had much more aphids than previous years and some of ours that stayed outdoors in the wild (I couldn’t take in anymore!) were attacked by a large spider. I saw it happen 🙁
    But overall 107 was awesome and we shared with about 20 new people helping get others started with their own butterflies!
    We live in San Diego and our butterfly garden had expanded more than 3 fold this pat year 🙂 thanks to Tony for inspiring me to do this!

96. Just a quick note,We had our best year yet. 197 total released, 650 since 2013.. We are located in Lake Bluff Il. Started out slow, ( Maybe the wet spring) Then all came at once. They also ended earlier than years before. See you in the spring

97. Tony: This is my first year raising these beauties. I live in Chula Vista, California (located in San Diego County) and to date have successfully released 525 Monarchs. I say “to date” because I’m still raising! It’s been warm here, and I have cats in all different stages munching on milkweed, at least 50 chrysalides, and a dozen eggs. I started out with one milkweed plant. (Haha…don’t we all?) It attracted a female Monarch, and shortly afterwards I saw some very tiny, tiny striped caterpillars on the leaves. As these cats grew, I got more milkweed, then more, which then attracted more Monarchs. I now have over 60 plants. With the activity starting to wind down, a lot of my milkweed plants are beginning to recover. I should be set for next year. With so many munchers, I made lots of runs to our local garden centers getting more and more plants. I tried to keep my numbers in check, but it was tough to see the cats in my garden that fell victim to the tachinid fly or other predators. So I decided I would try and do everything I could. (Thank goodness I’m retired.) I did have some unexplained deaths in my mesh cages, lost about 25 cats to the t-fly, and also had a Pseudomonas outbreak that I believe began because I was offering cuttings that were too wet. I didn’t keep detailed records and can’t provide exact numbers, but next year I plan to keep a journal to log all my info.

    When I began raising Monarchs, I found your website. The information you provide has been so helpful. I continue to learn and expect to raise many more Monarchs in the years ahead. Seeing the transformation that takes place and releasing these beauties have been so rewarding. Thank you for all you do to help us along the way!

98. I am from Cleveland OH…the east side and not so much of an urban area. Had my first milkweed survive the winter-it was swamp milkweed that grew well in our very shady acre of land. We have the beginnings of a pollinator garden in the only area that gets sun..the milkweed in on the other side with a Sweet Bay and butterfly bush and an area that once was a tiny water area for a failed waterfall on the side of our house. But the swamp milkweed tolerates the afternoon shade and loves the more moist soil. During the middle of August I found my first 7 caterpillars in their first instar. I made plastic containers with mesh stretched removable tops and bottoms with styrofoam for floral picks for leaf cuttings. I found more in the next few days. As I saw the milkweed being devoured I bought some more at a reputable nursery where I bought the first plant. They were growing faster than the plants. I went to a local park that is a habitat for all kinds of wildlife and found more swamp milkweed but also found more caterpillars. I only found 3 eggs (I think) but they never matured. As the caterpillars grew we started feeding common milkweed from the park…sometimes going on daily milkweed runs! We also kept finding more caterpillars on tuberosa and tropical. We rescued them as well and now had three large plastic containers with about 10-11 caterpillars each as well as some isolated ones in glass containers because I got them when they were larger. They started forming j’s and finally chrysalises that I moved to prevent the other caterpillars from walking all over them. I purchased small mesh cubes and used dental floss to tie them to the top. I added another mesh cube as more caterpillars made chrysalis. They started eclosing and I was even more amazed! The first ones to eclose did so in terrible weather and it took a few days to release them. Next time I will sort them by when they eclosed so that I make sure they are released on time or fed nectar. By the time I tried nectar and even flowers in the cube a few had gotten too week…at least this is the only explanation for the deaths of two beautiful butterflies that appeared completely heathy. I tried everything but I didn’t know about misting the cube…I did mist the caterpillar cages. I tried each day to release them but it was too cold and they didn’t want to fly. Heartbreaking. I also lost a caterpillar as it was forming a j…I don’t know if the others bothered it too much but it was too late when I moved it…it stopped the process and died. These may be mistakes that I can learn from and not the result of disease or parasite since I didn’t notice anything. I did learn and released almost 40 butterflies. I arranged to share my releases with others to bring meaning to an event as well as teach children and adults. So my butterflies were part of a wedding; a gravesite memorial; a Facebook video honoring friends that share with me the death of a child…I have experienced the deaths of three of my four children…all at different ages. Many children joined me and learned about the Monarch’s story. At the end of September I found 8 more caterpillars while looking for milkweed…three of them had tachinid flies and I didn’t know until they were in a chrysalis…I saw the discoloring and removed the three from the other chrysalises to wait and see. I found the pupa of the fly in the mesh cube of the three parasite infested ones. I did save the other five and released the last one today with my only surviving child…bittersweet in many ways but still magical. So 43 butterflies were released and all headed south which really amazed me…they didn’t stop to sample the flowers but flew high to the tops of the trees and were out of sight as they turned towards the southwest. Even with the deaths of a caterpillar, two butterflies, and three pupa I will do this again next year. I have learned from this site as well as my dear friend in OK. I want to improve and look forward to reading everyone’s stories. Now to take care of the seeds and make sure to plant enough milkweed; I have some neighbors who are planting milkweed with me. It’s a start! Thanks for the emails and the encouragement.

99. This is the third year that I started raising Monarchs. The 1st season 2015, I released 16 butterflies, the 2nd only 3, I expect about over 75 butterflies to be released this year. We live in north Jersey and temperature now gets down to low 40s. I am keeping 2 butterflies emerged this afternoon tonight until tomorrow.

    There were 3 caterpillar deaths, 1 unknown, 1 possibly drawn in spilled water. 2 chrysalis deaths; 1 lost much body liquid when to become a chrysalis, 1 was the last caterpillar I had toward the end of September: it was too small to become a chrysalis (about 1/2 size of normal caterpillars)when it tried to be a chrysalis. I wonder if it knew that the time to leave was ticking.

    It is a good idea to grow different types of milkweeds to maintain good supplies of milkweed throught Monarch raising seasons. I will never use small water bottles to keep milkweed, even plastic wraps on with holes on the top of the bottles. I will only use flower plugs for the safety of caterpillars.

100. I live in southeastern Michigan and reared 76 Monarchs this year with only 1 fatality…a bacterial infection in chrysalis. I tagged the last 24 with 15 males and 9 females released. It has been my best year since I began 7 years ago. It’s over now and I always miss my “buddies.” Looking forward to beginning again in 2018.

101. I released 80 monarchs this year.

102. In southern Wisconsin, my monarch season is not quite over yet. The last monarch I released, so far, was my 64th cage reared monarch of 2017 on Sept 26th. However, I still have 8 in chrysalises, 3 of which will probably emerge tomorrow. I had 2 of the 8 just form their chrysalises today. I also have one chubby caterpillar still munching on milkweed, which is getting sparse. Last year I released my last monarch around Oct 22nd and autumn was much chillier then, so I am not concerned about the ones I still have. Of the 64 monarchs that I have released this year, I’ve had a pretty even number of males and females, just a few more males. Also of the 64, I had one loss, number 46 unexpectedly died shortly after coming out of her chrysalis. I am not sure why exactly. My challenges this year were having enough space and milkweed for them. Many of my milkweed plants fell victim to aphids. At the height of the rearing season, I had 3 of my homemade butterfly towers set up to house all my babies and I also had caterpillars that I was keeping an eye on in the gardens. I did not want to overcrowd them in my towers. You can find instructions for my towers here https://blog.gardeningknowhow.com/gardening-diy/do-it-yourself-butterfly-tower/
     This blog article was about the original one I made last year. I have since done some tweaking to make them more escape proof and make them better for my babies.

103. This is absolutely the best monarch site I’ve found and I’ve learned so much here. I started raising monarchs four years ago by just bring some in my screened porch in a vase of milkweed! I obviously learned a lot by trial and error and now have a large screened cage.
     I raised and released 32 monarchs this year. Last one, a female, emerged Monday, Sept. 25 and I saw a large male Sept. 29 which I was able to photograph. For the first time this year, I actually witnessed the chrysalis appear as the J form caterpillar shed it’s final skin. I did have one die in J formation and destroyed 4 diseased chrysalises . When we went on vacation to VT in mid October, I left my chrysalises here in PA and my daughter helped them out of the cage as they hatched. I took four cats to my small nephew’s daycare in VT. Two were chrysalis by the time I got them to him and at last report they had release two butterflies and had one chrysalis and one caterpillar that never made it!
     Last year was going to be my last year doing the monarchs but I just can’t seem to stop! Thanks to this site I’m even more motivated and I’m going to try tagging them next year..

104. Sherri Simpson from Temecula,CA- southern Cal. This is my 2nd yr. first year I got 5 cats late October and released all those- I was hooked. I got 2 cubes and more milkweed for this year and Oh my!!! I released 75 monarchs this summer! I had to give away over 60 cats in July when I was running low on milkweed, but I found 2 fellow Monarch addicts to be share with! It has been an amazing process and I love filming them and watching the females lay eggs- it was a daily process in June and July. I suffered MANY losses from the tachnid fly. It got so bad that I would lose 100% if I didn’t bring them in as eggs. I probably lost 40 or more to tacnid fly- theses would be maybe 10 day old cars that I was picking off leaves and they were already infected. It got pretty disheartening for awhile there! But, I made the egg nursery and watched the female lay eggs and then brought them in. I saved some at least!! In late August I noticed several gigantic praying mantises in
     My garden. I went out one day to look for cats and saw a mantis eating a cat. I was so mad! I relocated them to a school, but I watched them actually catch my newly released last butterflies of the season as well. Lesson learned- relocate mantises before they get big! Also lost 10 to a neonicticide poisoning from Home Depot plant! So mad!! But, I love my hobby and I will keep protecting those that I can. No cats for a couple weeks now- I think the mantises ate them all!!

105. We have just released our last Monarch butterfly. Hate to see it end but it has been fun. This is our first year rearing Monarchs and we are looking forward to next year. We had 35 females and 24 males for a total of 59. We only tagged 34 because we didn’t get the tags in time. Next year, order tags early!
     We are planning a large butterfly garden for next year. This year was “hit and miss” on milkweed plants and very few flowers.
     Our thanks to Tony for all the advice.
     We will need more cages for next year. We have only one now.

     1. Hi,
        I had that same problem one year when my tags came late. My solution was to make a butterfly net and tag any wild, late migration butterflies visiting the yard. Caught enough to use up all the tags 🙂

106. I raised 12 caterpillars! Not a lot but last year I only found two chrysalids and I brought one in. Now I know how to search for eggs and caterpillars. I plan on planting more milkweed next year. Unfortunately I was away when five of the butterflies emerged! My husband and son had the job of releasing them. I brought a chrysalis to my granddaughter’s kindergarten class and they were able to watch the transformation to a butterfly and the maiden flight. I explained to them how important milkweed is to the monarch. Reading the monarch book really helped! I live in northern New Jersey.

107. This has been an AMAZING monarch raising year. Last year, with the help of this site, I raised and released 8 wild ones.This year, I expected to see more monarchs, but never as many as I have. I had expectations based on a reading that stated they probably will follow the pathway of past generations…well, it seems as if they created a flight plan pathway to my garden! I collected 334 eggs on the various milkweeds throughout July, August and early September…and a whole bunch of folks raised them. I couldn’t keep up with the posting of sightings on Journey North/South website! I had found so many throughout the summer that I recruited folks, Allison, Art teacher& a Girl Scout leader, Sally Fisher from Friends of Inwood Hill Park, NYC Parks Rangers, &Friends of Neperhan Park. They all helped to raise them while creating awareness. My share was 132 healthy monarchs w 105 tagged for Monarch Watch. I’m still awaiting the numbers from the other folks who helped raise them. Sadly, I encountered 2 black deaths-separately in different times. I took them out of the cages and sequestered them giving them a chance, but they died – thankfully the others didn’t. I also had 4 caterpillar pesticide poisonings from a milkweed plant bought from a nursery- 2 died despite doing the rinsing in voile. In addition, I witnessed a short life of one butterfly which eclosed while I was at work & got stuck in its chrysalis. My panicked daughter called me and by the time I got home, carefully removed it, its tiny wings were all crumpled…little guy lived on a bed of flowers for a few days. In addition, I had come home to a female monarch with a slightly crumpled wing. We named her “Little wing ” & after watching her on a potted plant , we placed her in the sun and she surprised us by flying to higher plants in the garden and enjoyed her life there. In addition, I was awarded a Partnerships for Parks Grant (in Inwood NYC,) for a 2 day Monarch Teacher Network workshop for community educators. Sally,from Friends of Inwood hill Park, became a monarchaholic like me, & recruited many folks too. A diverse group from NYRP, Dykman House, AnaRita of Bruce’s Garden, Grow a Wild NYC, CHALK and NYC public schools came to my school in the last week of summer to learn how to raise, teach and advocate for monarchs. To me , it’s not only about the numbers of butterflies one releases but the amount of getting more folks engaged and,raising them -planting milkweed, advocating for them. I learned that Sally, from Friends of Inwood Hill Park , was an amazing ambassador for the monarchs, not only in raising them -she raised so many monarchs in her NYC apartment with the milkweed from the school garden & Inwood Park waystation the children had planted- she created an upper Manhattan buzz …She released many on the day of the eclipse, and other days as they were born, continually raising awareness and getting folks signed up to plant more native milkweed around NYC. I wish she would write a blog on all her visits to local policy folks , children, the elderly ,-engaging them to develop more milkweed waystations, and releasing the wild ones where they belong- back into the wild…
     Inspired by Sally, on 9/11 a third grade class in my school released Olivia (which means Peace, she was born 9/10/17) out into the world-and on the wings of a monarch they were singing out their wishes for better days…
     I have learned so much from this site and have passed this site onto many others. It was an incredibly busy summer filled with the amazing beauty of monarchs and folks who care about them and are working to help raise awareness, plant milkweed and other nectar /host plants having the monarch as the entry point back into reconnecting to our natural world and helping to sustain it. I’m thankful to Tony and members of this site and all those who choose to help our natural world and help raise the monarch migration.

     1. What a wonderful story and your dedication to raising awareness for the Monarch is amazing! Thank you for sharing!

108. I am from southeast Michigan and this was my first year raising Monarchs. I released 14 total which is a lot more than I expected for my first year. I started with two one small mesh habitat and two milkweed plants. I ended with three milkweed plants (plus two from a friend that will be used next year) and two small habitats and one large habitat. A big lesson was learning to find the eggs. I swore I did not have any so a friend gave me seven of hers to get started. Once I saw how small they were I was able to find quite a bit on my own plants. Another big lesson was that salt really does save them when they drown. I was super careful on covering my water cups but one somehow slipped in. I had literally just read on a post about the salt so I knew what to do. My little Lazarus turned into a beautiful female that was #11. I also learned to keep a trash container just in case some eggs are missed. I found some tiny cats on leaves I had already checked so I can’t just trust my eyes. I was so excited to be able to take part this year but was absolutely amazed at seeing the process from tiny egg to butterfly. I can’t wait to see what happens next year. Thank you for the emails and Facebook posts as they were my guides during the entire process.

109. Yesterday we released our last butterfly for this season, a male. This was my first time being involved with Raise the Migration and I must say it was very gratifying to be involved. I live in Chula Vista, CA, just south of San Diego. I have a view of Mexico from my backyard…
     My husband bought me 3 tropical milkweed plants with flowers just ready to open. We planted them in a large whiskey barrel planter and within a week I had visitors and then started finding eggs. My first batch I successfully collect 10, all 10 hatched. We had to go buy a couple of more plants to supply them with enough Milkweed. That’s where my second batch came from, the plants I picked up already had tiny cats and eggs on them. This group, I collected 14 eggs and/or caterpillars. Two eggs never hatched. But the others all safely made it to butterflies. I release a total of 22, 7 were males, 15 females.
     Lessons learned…make sure that the leaf piece is large enough not to dry up before the egg hatches. The other is that a separate waste box before trash is very useful. I found a tiny cat that I had accidentally thrown away while cleaning, found it a day later while re-examining my discarded leaf pieces. He was actually the last one that I released yesterday.
     Now the only thing left to do is clean my cages well and wait for next spring. I think next season will be even better from what I’ve learned. I have transplanted all of my milkweed, cut them back and already have new leaves trying to grow. I’ll have a good crop from next year. I also seeds, plus a pack of seeds I bought that need to have the cold treatment first. Can’t wait to do it all again!!

110. Hi!
     I am in Point Clark, Ontario, Canada on the shores of Lake Huron. This is my 4th year trying to raise Monarchs. The first year I only had one success. I did have one come out but it’s wings did not fully open. He only lasted 4 days. I was giving him flowers. The second year I had 2 fly away. Last year I had almost no luck finding caterpillars. I found one and brought it home but it disappeared. I found another but had to go back home to get something to bring it home in. When I went back for it, it was nowhere to be found. This year I found lots of cats and was able to successfully release 18 butterflies; 9 females and 9 males. I did have several black deaths and about 4 Chrysalises that never formed properly. I still have one male whose wings did not completely unfurl. He is 5 days old now.
     After reading everything on your site, I am hoping for a more successful year next year. Every year I learn a little more.

111. Just started with Monarchs this year. We had limited success with the eggs. Hatched 7, but only 1 at survived. Found one more cat on the milkweed, so we actually were able to release 2 adults. Looking forward to more success next year. Your site has been an invaluable resource for us.

     We did manage to hatch 6 Black Swallowtails that we had overwintered and three more cats we discovered early in this season.

     We’ve been truly amazed watching what goes on in the microcosm of our backyard landscape!

112. My name is Kim and my I’m from Edmond, OK. I planted milkweed for the first time this year and really didn’t even realize that the Monarchs had laid eggs until I saw a big fat caterpillar eating one day. I counted 9 that day. I bought a tent and brought some of them inside, the only 4 I could find. Within a few days all of those transformed and I begin my daily quest looking for more. I found 8 more. I had put them in little bug containers to share with friends, fed them until they transformed and gave the chyrsalids to my friends. They all emerged! I did have 2 that were invaded with tachnid flies and one caterpillar that made his J but then died and never transformed. So for my first year I had a total of 12 butterflies that I and my friends released and probably 5 or 6 that were too stealthy for me to find that emerged in my yard. when ne actually emerged 2 days ago and flew away. My friends’ children were so excited to participate and I am hooked! Thanks for all your helpful tips and information. It was so very helpful!

113. I started raising Monarchs in August. I raised to release 13 butterflies. I estimate a 60% success. My errors mostly were in not seeing that my eggs had hatched. I threw away my first batch of milkweed when I no longer saw eggs on them. Luckily my mentor set me straight on my second batch. Also, things went much better after I opened a newborn nursery to hatch the eggs in. I live in West Allis, Wisconsin.

114. I live in northern San Diego County, California in a community called Hidden Meadows at an elevation of 1400 ft. This is my 3rd year of raising butterflies (monarchs, cloudless sulphur and anise yellowtails.) I have grown a large patch of in-ground tropical milkweed which got 5 feet tall and was beautiful and healthy, but got no monarch butterflies until July. I raised 12 in the house in 3 large pop-up cages I purchased from Tony’s website and released all of them. In early September, a friend asked me to adopt 25 small cats because her milkweed was depleted. I brought them home and used potted milkweed in the cage to raise them. 19 survived to hatching and today I released the last one. During this time, I finally got more visitors to my outdoor patch and brought 34 eggs inside to hatch. I fed them with cutting from outside and small potted milkweed plants I grow for indoor use. When the cats got about 2″, I moved them outside into a large wood and screen cage I built, using large potted milkweed plants I grow inside a greenhouse. I have counted 33 cats which have started to pupate in the last couple of days. I will provide an update on release when I get the results in a couple of weeks. Another friend may be giving me her cats if she runs out of milkweed before they pupate. We have a Monarch Co-op of about 8 people that either provide potted milkweed or adopt out their cats when they run low of food. It is working nicely and we are having great success with our efforts.
     Thanks Tony for all the great tips that have aided us in our successes.

115. 30Sept17

     Howdy,

     We’re located in Northeast Pennsylvania. We started seeing Monarchs 28MAY17 on our flowers. Started collecting caterpillars off our milkweed plants (apprx. 4-5 acres interspersed with golden rod and intermediate dog bane) in July. Out of a total of 32 cats, 30 made it to adulthood. Also got 23 cats from Rose Franklin in July, 21 of those made it. We still have seven chrysalises. Two are showing their wing colors, the rest are still all green. Peace, Rick and Mary Burkhart

116. I’m from upstate New York just below Saratoga. This was my first year raising Monarchs and my wife and I found 5 Cats in the milkweed plants we had planted two years ago. I didn’t document the date but it was around the 15th of September, I keep them in a mesh enclosure and feed them on milkweed cuttings I put in small disposable “tupperware” like containers with small holes cut in the lid. I changed the cuttings once after 3 days and misted the cuttings to provide some water for the Cats. After 5 days the first one formed a J on the top attached by silk the others followed within a day, unfortunately the first Cat never formed a Chrysalis and eventually hung straight and died. Good news was the remaining 4 formed chrysalis on the 20th and eclosed on the 28th and 29th. I kept them in most evenings but put the mesh enclosure outside on nice days. Since it was a sunny mild day with temps around 70, I released them all Friday the 29th. Hopefully they made it a little south of here because the high today the 30th is only around 50F and overcast. I’m planting more nectar plants in the garden to try to attract more butterflies for next year. and I’m looking forward to raising more Monarchs.

117. I live in Beavercreek, OH, just outside of Dayton OH, and this is my 1st year to raise & release 11 monarchs. 9 of them were female and finally 2 were male. I released 6 in August and 5 in September with the last released Sept. 26th. I was very careful in cleaning cages daily and supplying plenty of fresh swamp milkweed and using the mild bleach solution between “batches”. I only had one unexplained caterpillar death, which stopped eating and just clung to one leaf while its siblings went on to form their Chrysalis’s. I isolated it and it just stayed on the leaf for 5 days, getting less responsive to me, and thinner, until the leaf dropped off the stalk. I then euthanized it.
     But the experience was wonderful and my friends and staff at work think it is great and have asked me what type of milkweed they would need.
     I do have both Swamp, which the Monarchs greatly prefer, and the smaller prairie milkweed, which is my backup.
     This fall I am adding Liatris Ligulistylis, but I already have about 1/3 of an acre of native wildflowers, and I never use pesticide or herbicide. So I have plenty of all types of bees, wasps, spiders, etc. I crush the aphids by hand as it is the fastest and most efficient way to kill them. They will avoid my milkweed plants if garlic is planted around them. So I plan to plant more garlic this fall.
     My goal for next year is 25 monarchs, which I should be able to fairly easily achieve by starting earlier in the season to collect the eggs and small cats.
     Thanks, Tony for your great guidance and encouragement which made this all possible.

118. I live in Broken Arrow, OK near Tulsa. First season raising monarchs and I absolutely loved it. I released about 60 monarchs. I lost seven. They started turning black and turned to black slime. I lost two chrysalis which turned to black slime also. I found that keeping all droppings cleaned up kept the slime problem away. I had used the little tubes with rubber toppers with a hole in them for the milkweed cuttings in my enclosure but the hot weather destroyed the toppers. The best method I found was using the plastic tubes stuck down into swimming pool sand in clear plastic cups (shorter and wider rather than taller and narrower cups). By pouring water from a sprinkling can over the tops of the sand filled cups, all the dropping from the cats could be gently poured off. I used a spray bottle to mist my cats and cuttings daily and it was easy to refill all the little plastic tubes with the spray bottle set on hard spray. I used the sealed food container method to hatch my monarch eggs and raise the cats to big enough to go into the enclosure. I grew butterfly weed, tropical milkweed, and swamp milkweed. The swamp milkweed will probably be better next year. This was an amazing experience. Next year my neighbors want to be involved also. I feel so lucky to have had this experience.

119. I live in Northwest Arkansas. I never see Monarchs in the spring. Why I don’t know. But come the middle of August the girls start appearing and my husband and I start following them as they lay eggs. Well the first 2 days we collected 200 eggs! I thought wow I am going to be busy this year. I was right and my kids think I’m nuts lol. But alas some weren’t fertilized as they turned black. We have 6 big areas of silky gold milkweed. I had plenty of it . Tomorrow I will release my last monarch and that will make a total of 225. Record year for me. Last year was only 100. There were so many more eggs and I attribute that to the large beds of milkweed. We had more cats outside but when I found them they were instar 4 or 5 so decided to leave them and am glad I did. Only a few made it. I had tachinid flies this year and they got to them before I did. How nasty! I am amazed at these wonderful creatures and how far they can crawl to “just the right place” to hang and form their little green home. We had one crawl thru one of our gardens, under a fence and gate, crawl up the side of the garage and end up over the garage door. At least 30 feet! It was wonderful to watch them fluttering around in our yard but now it’s time to put up the cages and wait for next year. Thanks for all the information you provide. It has helped me over the years.

120. I am from southwest Missouri and I released 9 females and 5 males from 9/2 thru last release on 9/24. This year I released 6 females in the spring. For the first time I had as many deaths as live butterflies. Four died in the chrysalis stage and at least 10 died from tachinid flies. This was the first year that I had monarchs appear in the spring and wasn’t expecting them. Food was in short supply then. I also ran out of butterfly weed to feed this fall. Having learned my lesson I am planting more butterfly weed for the monarchs to enjoy next year.

121. First time, eight eggs, 8 caterpillars, 8 successful releases – will do more next year. And neighbors are asking for milkweed seed!

122. Mickey from Central Illinois.
     This is my 2nd year. I started a year ago after my daughter’s death and have found it to be very therapeutic witnessing the Monarchs transformation. I have enlisted 4 others to raising the migration and your website.
     2017 results
     242 Monarchs released
     12 chrysalis hanging
     3 accidents
     10 chrysalis likely OE
     The Monarchs and I thank you Tony, we couldn’t have done it without your website!

     1. The 10 chrysalis death we’re likely tachinid fly, not OE. My typo while multitasking.

123. I have been raising Monarch since I was a young child. In the 1980’s I got involved with Professor Urquardt from Canada with his migration studies. This year I sucessufuly raised over 300 from eggs. I live in a suburb of Chicago. It was very dry here this year. A lot of Ants, aphids, and such on the plants but I only found five caterpillars. Those five had no parasites. Sadly sime of my collecting areas had been mowed down for no apparent reason. The condition of the milkweed was very dry in the fields. But all in all is was a very successful year. I had only two caterpillar deaths. I got three people set up with caterpillars and it was exciting to watch their enthusiasm. As you all know this is a very addictive hobby. I know those three people are now addicted also. How gratifying to share this with other who can help the cause. One being a teacher who shared with her students. A dear friend of mine has a motto which I love , “Each one reach one, Each one teach one.” I know my efforts in teaching will blossom further.

124. I started raising Monarchs 10 years ago with my children and have become addicted to it now that they are grown past the interest stage. I have also successfully raised Black Eastern Swallowtails and Giant Swallowtails and documented the raising of Pipevine Swallowtails for the first time ever present in this area. This summer has been extremely Monarch friendly beginning in early June until 2 weeks ago. I have managed to find and raise 74 males, 66 females, and 27 indeterminate(neighbor released while I was on vacation) healthy Monarchs from eggs found in my Strathroy, Ontario, Canada backyard:) There are 4 more Chrysalis’ to hatch as well which should bring my total to 171 so, their best year yet, fingers crossed!! This year besides the large aquarium which has a screened/meshed removable lid, I introduced Tony’s idea of putting the leaves with the eggs on them in a smaller glass bottomed Tupperware container until they hatched and grew into their 2nd or 3rd instar phase and moved them, leaf and all into the large aquarium holding a vase with fresh, daily milkweed. This seemed to help the small ones survive the large ones’ voracious appetites:) I am so glad to read about all the wonderful people trying to save the Monarch population, kudos to you!!
     Just one issue, my milkweed seemed to have developed a black mold later in the season as well as the usual aphid infestation which caused sap-like stains on the ground around them, attracting lots of yellow jackets. Any idea what the blackened leaves were caused from?

     1. Congrats Genevieve…if you’re going to have an addiction, this is a great choice that helps to support the struggling monarch population ?

        For your plants, excess moisture can cause mold, and this is common for end-of-season milkweed. In Minneapolis, we raise our late season monarchs on non-native varieties including tropical milkweed and swan milkweed, which are still in great shape. Having an assortment of milkweed to choose from helps to support more monarchs. Here’s info on:

        Milkweed Diseases

     2. Hi Genevieve,
        The black mold is probably from all the honeydew exuded by the aphids. From what I’ve read, neither it nor the aphids themselves are as harmful to the plant as they look.

        1. That sounds more reasonable as some of the milkweed affected did not receive much water. Thanks.

125. Hi Tony,
     I am in Southern California, and this year has not been the best. I have tachinid flies so I bring in all cats now, no matter what size. I “quarantine” those guys. Most of them have been parasitized, but I figure at least I can kill the fly eggs. I don’t need more of them being born in my yard! This year I tried raising the caterpillars that came from clean eggs in their own large cage. I put a couple of milkweed plants inside (2 from seed, and one that I bought). The plant that I bought must have been “neemed” by the grower. I had cats that simply stopped moving and died. If I wash this milkweed plant, will it be okay, or should I throw it away?

     Thanks,

     Susie

     1. Hi Susie, if you cut back the stalks and foliage, the new growth should be fine to host future monarchs. It’s a good idea to get some milkweed established at home to avoid accidentally buying pesticide treated plants. you might be able to find some good resources here:

        Western Monarch Resources

     2. I saw a video that a monarch grower dipped the leaves in bleach to purify it and then thoroughly rinsed it off, and all was well.

126. This is my first year raising monarchs in northern IN. So far 20 have been released with 15 still in the chrysalis stage. The most difficult part was finding a place for the caterpillars. I collected them off the milkweed plants due to never finding any eggs. Ended up buying a lot of plastic critter cages of various sizes. Was very busy getting milkweed leaves daily to feed the cats. And keeping the cages clean was another issue. There were a ton of insects, aphids, etc on my milkweeds. The only two outdoor chrysalis were destroyed by insects (spider and wasp). I began with a mesh laundry basket for release and then was able to find a regular mesh cage on line.

     All of your emails were a great help. Hope to do better next year.

127. This was my 3rd season of planting milkweed, and by far the most successful. During the first two years I enjoyed the Monarch caterpillars, but only saw 2 chrysalises and only one butterfly after it emerged. This year, I saw a paper wasp kill two caterpillars. I invested in a $10 mosquito net from Academy Sports and set up a rectangular sanctuary using tomato stakes and metal garden posts.. So far I have released almost 40 Monarchs (one Queen) and have 11 chrysalises under the net (one of which I think may be a Queen butterfly). I attribute this success to the fact that I left a new plant in the pot when I put one under the netting. After the first wave consumed almost the milkweed, I put a potted plant in the garden and moved it under the net once I spotted many eggs, I kept a new potted milkweed plant in the garden to welcome a female Monarch. When these Monarchs emerge, I will plant the milkweed in the ground and cut it back for next season.

128. This was my 3rd season of planting milkweed, and by far the most successful. During the first two years I enjoyed the Monarch caterpillars, but only saw 2 chrysalises and only one butterfly after it emerged. This year, I saw a paper wasp kill two caterpillars. I invested in a $10 mosquito net from Academy Sports and set up a rectangular sanctuary using tomato stakes and metal garden posts.. So far I have released almost 40 Monarchs (one Queen) and have 11 chrysalises under the net (one of which I think may be a Queen butterfly). I attribute this success to the fact that I left a new plant in the pot when I put one under the netting. After the first wave consumed almost the milkweed, I put a potted plant in the garden and moved it under the net once I spotted many eggs, I kept a new potted milkweed plant in the garden to welcome a female Monarch. When these Monarchs emerge, I will plant the milkweed in the ground and cut it back for next season.

129. From Los Angeles, CA. This is my first year raising monarchs. I started off with 8 milkweed plants and just watching nature take its course. But then I noticed yellow jackets killing my little caterpillars. So, I felt the need to now save ALL of my cats! I ended up buying 2 aquariums, 4 cages, and then built a big screened in “condo” from pvc pipes.
     So, far I have released 67 beautiful Monarchs. I lost 7 cats, 3 chrysalis, and 3 butterflies. Most of my losses were in the beginning when I was still trying to figure everything out. Tony’s website and information helped tremendously!
     I still have 21 eggs, 17 cats, and 12 chrysalis. The butterflies are still coming and laying eggs. It has been around 85 degrees, no fall weather here yet.

     1. Would you post a picture of your PVC condo? Thanks!

        1. Following! I’d love to see a picture of your pic condo also.

     2. You did right as they have so many enemies out there that want them..

130. Hello,
     We live in western Mass. and do our raising at the elementary school where we work. Our whole school is involved in the process as we have an 800 foot pollinator garden in the front of the school, raising tanks in almost every room (sometimes 2-3) and a large one in the library for all the students to see and keep watch on. We have collected and tagged, and released 100 cats. We have also released at least 30 more without tagging (I didn’t buy enough!). We have had some losses due to unexplained circumstances, maybe 15 in all, some due to parasitic wasps, one whose wings did not inflate properly as it fell to the bottom of the cage overnight and didn’t get to hang. All in all a great year. We have a patch of wild milkweed mowed in June that is our source of fresh young food for our cats. I found the caterpillars to be of exceptionally large size this year, very healthy and fat. Here is hoping that the migration is as large as Chip says it will be. It certainly looks that way from the early time that I began seeing the butterflies in this area, in June!, and numbers of caterpillars we have seen everywhere. A very exciting year!

131. We are in Northeastern PA , just started in August and have successfully released two monarchs. Our local library has a Garden Project providing food to food banks locally and providing pollinators to the community through our Butterfly Garden. Other members began and successfully released many butterflies, both monarch and swallow tail. It has been very warm here and so I’ve been more confident about releasing these precious beings. I have milkweed plants, but have yet to find eggs, caterpillars or crysalysis on them. The two I released were gifts from others. I will be consulting you and others here on this great website next year to tackle this quandry.

     My husband was more excited than I was during our first release! We managed to keep them from our two labrador retrievers as they excitedly danced around us. It IS exciting and fulfilling to be a part of this. Thank you Tony, for all your info and help! See you next spring!!

132. I live in Louisville, Ky. This was my first year with Monarchs. It was such a joy! Have released five healthy Monarchs already and currently have 14 Cats at various stages. Already planning my garden for next year. Picked up five common milkweed plants at the nursery over the weekend. Had the most success with common milkweed. My son and family are sold on Monarchs and will start their own garden next year. That goes for my younger brother in Southeastern Kentucky as well.

     Every time we are in St. Louis, we visit the Butterfly House with our other son and his family. It’s so much fun!

     I thoroughly enjoy watching the transformation the Monarchs go through. It reminds me of the transformations we go through in this life as well. So many parallels. Sharing pictures of the Monarchs with people of all ages at the parish where I pastor has been a great way to encourage people to see beauty and possibility in life. I am going to bring the current group in for the students of the parish school to see as well as release those that are ready. The students are always asking me about them. I pray that many will return next year.

     A special thank you to Tony for all the instruction. Has been extremely helpful.

     Father Dave

133. We live in McHenry County, Illinois.
     We released 41 monarchs, 20 males and 21 females. The last one was released on 9/23.
     I lost a total of 6 :`( . Lost 3 cats due to tachinid fly eggs, 1 just stooped eating. Another one (I don’t know why) her mid section down was skinnier than the rest of it’s body, and then it stopped eating.
     Lost 1 chrysalis, it looked healthy at the beginning, but then , half of it started getting black . I think it’s called black dead.
     1 butterfly had problems closing her wings completely. Looked like her wings didn’t unfold correctly. but it was able to fly very well.
     It was lot of work to raise them, cleaning cages, rinsing milkweed every day, but I LOVED it!. I can’t way for them next year.
     My son helped me a lot. We enjoyed releasing them, it’s a very special feeling.

     Thank you Tony, Monarch king 🙂 We have learned so much from you.

     1. Linda agrees so much fun will be busy planting and spreading more milkweed in fall

134. We are newbs to raising monarchs but had a small but successful first attempt. 9 eggs/babies, all successfully raised and released from first of Sept to Sept 19th. Found one chrysalis in the garden so brought it inside to monitor and it too successfully hatched. A couple of the monarchs seemed much bigger than the others, would that indicate they are the ‘migrators’? Also, I’ve seen where the males are supposed to have some extra white marks but not sure what we should be looking for? This was just soooooooo much fun. What a learning experience! My 15 year old son was very much into (yay, away from video games!) and even brought in a swallowtail caterpillar a week ago. It chrysalized this weekend. We are in southwest PA. Thanks for running this site!

     1. Hi Karla, isn’t fun to see our sons enjoying this? Mine is so much into it, he is reading a lot about butterflies, I think he knows more about it than me 🙂 They stay away from TV or videogames, and learn to love nature. It’s good to know that our future generations will keep doing the good work.

135. I have learned a lot since I started in June. So far 20 released in June, July 43, Aug 52 and around 39 in Sept.. Not quite sure as I have baby worms all over the place on milkweed plants in the growing room.

     Hurricane Irma did me in as well as I am here in Sebastian and I evacuated and set up the area as best I could be nectar plants and honey mixture but still lost 6 beautifully formed monarchs. 3 were set free. Next time they come with me in a cage.

     I have learned from this website that when you run out f milkweed one of the things you can offer is butternut squash. So I bought organic and have been experimenting and they seem to really like it. I have even put some in when they have milkweed and they go have a bit of squash. I have also noticed that if they look like they are about ready to be a chrysalis and have some squash they head on up to the top of the cage and do their thing. Almost like it is a final refreshing thing before they go to the next stage. I am doing more experiments now to see if this holds up.

     Every day I learn more that is for sure.

     Thanks Sue

     1. Hi Sue, keep in mind that the effects of squash on monarch development have not been tested. We recommend it as a last resort for milkweed emergencies…congrats on a successful season!

136. 15 eggs – 15 Monarch’s released. Incredible experience! Make SURE you have a good source of Milkweed – these cats each MUCH more than what I’d anticipated – I was driving the back roads in the evenings gathering fresh milkweed to keep them fed. I was also surprised by how much those little bugs can poop – oh my goodness! I’d definitely do this again!

137. I have been raising and releasing Monarchs since 2009. I live in Pensacola, Florida. I just love it!!! My best year was 2014 I released 246!!! This year I have released 123 and have 35 chrysalis in my box waiting to become beautiful butterflies.. I have found this year I have had less disease then in years past. I have only lost 2 this entire season during the stage between caterpillar and chrysalis stage.
     In 2018 I am going to try and grow my own milkweed. My local supplier went out of business this year and it has been difficult to find pesticide free milkweed.
     I have enjoyed your site very much. Next year I will try to be more purposeful in collecting my data as to male and female.

138. I am a fifth grade teacher in New Prague, MN and we have been releasing Monarch butterflies for years. My students love to stop class to watch a caterpillar go into its chrysalis or watch a Monarch emerge! We also love to release them after the wings are dry. This was a great year! We had many….even a few that I rehung over the sink when the were in a bad spot. We had 37 in all. We released 18 males and 16 females. We had 2 cats die and 1 chrysalis turn black. Next year we are going to tag the Monarch butterflies to learn more about their migration. https://monarchwatch.org/tagmig/tag.htm Thanks so much for your site! We have learned to be better stewards for the butterflies!

139. I brought in 5 big cats in early August on a whim and was disappointed to see them each succumb to parasites (telltale strings) either hanging or in chrysalis stage. Hooked at that point I started bringing in eggs. 9/22 I released my first male. 9/23 one male and one female, today two males. I have 10 that will emerge in the next few days, two of which I brought in as small cats.
     I’m in Oklahoma and read that I should cut down my milkweed (tropical) to encourage migration but when I went out to do it I found 14 more eggs and one small cat so that will have to wait!
     My best tip is for keeping cuttings viable. I purchased two small fiji water bottles because they are square. I poked 3 holes in one side. It’s easy to stick different sized cuttings in the holes and the plants stay happy and edible until devoured. My latest cutting lasted 4 days that way (it only had one hungry cat resident). In a pinch a small softsided cat/dog carrier makes a great place when they are ready to hang and change.
     I planted my tropical milkweed along with my vegetable garden 3 years ago and it has multiplied enough to keep me well supplied. I’ve bought seeds of other varieties to plant this fall in more places. I wish I had stickers for tracking but there is always next year.
     Thanks for all I’ve learned from your site.

140. This was my first experience but I released 20 beautiful monarch butterflies. I did loose 3. I learned so must from this site and the Facebook pages, I am addicted and working on germinating seeds for next year. Thank you from South Jersey.

141. This is our first year raising Monarchs. Our results were amazing! Truly thanks to Tony. It seemed that nearly every time an issue happened we would get update right on time addressing that issue! The most important lesson for me was to understand they newly emerged butterfly does not need to eat immediately. This was a concern of mine after the cat not eating for two weeks, I would have thought they would be in need of immediate nourishment. Appearently not so. In fact I have never seen a newly emerged butterfly EVER eat. Even after 3 days. We have released them directly to nectar producing flowers and they seem to have no interest.
     Our system for raising cats is to rear them in vented Rubbermaid containers of about 8″. Usually 4-5 cats in each. This is easiest to clean twice daily. Keeping them all about the same size in each. Once they ge t to the last instar they go into a large home built mesh enclosure 2’x3’where they convert to chrysalis and await release.
     Also having raised over 70 butterflies this year it’s been difficult making sure there was always enough leaves, everyday. So we pick 30 or so leaves daily, rinse them and wrap them in a wet paper towel keep them in another plastic container for a couple of days, misting them before feeding.

     Interestingly- the Monarchs we have been releasing here in western NY (Avon), for the last two weeks, ALL head directly south west immediately upon release!

     68 Monarchs
     5 still in chrysalis
     2 cats
     2 chrysalis deaths
     3 cat deaths
     1 accidental death ?

     1. We brought in 10 caterpillars. 7/10 made it to full butterfly stage. This is our first year doing this. 1 caterpillar had the NPV virus, I believe, as it did the upside down V and died. 2 others did not successfully pupate, though they tried. Heartbreaking. I will only use GLASS containers for the caterpillars next year as I suspect the metal container may have had something to do with this, even though it was lined. On a positive note, I will release the last butterfly today, who is a male. All others have been female. It has been a real joy turning my laundry room into a caterpillar nursery. I have a wild volunteer milkweed plant take up residence in my pesticide-free garden, 6 butterfly weed plants, where I found the caterpillars, and am building a true pollinator garden. Many toads, dragonflies, etc. visit. It has been a truly rewarding experience in Ligonier PA and I would highly recommend anyone do this. One other thing I learned, as the one caterpillar escaped, is that my leftover Christmas poinsettia is a type of milkweed! Who knew!

142. This is our first year raising Monarchs. Our results were amazing! Truly thanks to Tony. It seemed that nearly every time an issue happened we would get update right on time addressing that issue! The most important lesson for me was to understand they newly emerged butterfly does not need to eat immediately. This was a concern of mine after the cat not eating for two weeks, I would have thought they would be in need of immediate nourishment. Appearently not so. In fact I have never seen a newly emerged butterfly EVER eat. Even after 3 days. We have released them directly to nectar producing flowers and they seem to have no interest.
     Our system for raising cats is to rear them in vented Rubbermaid containers of about 8″. Usually 4-5 cats in each. This is easiest to clean twice daily. Keeping them all about the same size in each. Once they ge t to the last instar they go into a large home built mesh enclosure 2’x3’where they convert to chrysalis and await release.
     Also having raised over 70 butterflies this year it’s been difficult making sure there was always enough leaves, everyday. So we pick 30 or so leaves daily, rinse them and wrap them in a wet paper towel keep them in another plastic container for a couple of days, misting them before feeding.

     Interestingly- the Monarchs we have been releasing here in western NY (Avon), for the last two weeks, ALL head directly south east, immediately upon release!

     68 Monarchs
     5 still in chrysalis
     2 cats
     2 chrysalis deaths
     3 cat deaths
     1 accidental death ?

143. This is my first year raising monarchs. I work at a natural history museum and our new director has been doing it since she was 8 years old. She got me hooked. I brought home 1 instar 1 and since have found many instars and eggs on my milkweed. I just released 7 beauties, 3 males and 4 females. I did loose a few caterpillars to parasites and one that made it to j position and then died. I also had 1 chrysalis that fell. I waited until it hardened and then tied it to a twig. It was slightly malformed and my “Lucky” emerged with one wing turned over. I kept him at work with a female whose chrysalis had also fallen and her wings were severely crumpled. They became the sort of “mascots” for the butterfly program that we had offered for the community. The release party was today and we released around 200 tagged butterflies. I still have 10 chrysalises and 6 more caterpillars to go. Hopefully, this is the first of many successful years of raising Monarchs!

144. This was the first year my daughter and I tried to “Raise the Migration” as you have posted. I got interested in the monarchs after reading the novel The Butterfly’s Daughter by “my” author Mary Alice Monroe! (She is the one that gave me the info. on your website.) Being just beginners, we felt proud that we successfully raised and released six monarchs. Some from the egg stage and some from the “cat” stage! The last one was released on Sept. 19!! It was quite a learning experience I might say!
     The worst part was cleaning the frass (I think for poop)! So we have been trying to brain storm to see if there could be any easier way to do this! Is there some kind of vacuum that could be used? Also, someone suggested using a bird cage and put netting around it and then you could just slide out the bottom to dispose . Of course you would have to figure out a way to mount the milkweed.
     My grandkids, four and six, have learned so much from all of this!!!!

     1. Hi Dee, we talk about the handheld vacuum we use to clean our big cube cage in this post:

        Easy Caterpillar Cleaning

145. I’ve learned a lot this year and hope for better results in the future. Too many preditors this year; wasps, ants, birds, spiders and possibly others I wasn’t aware of. My question is, is there any chance that the caterpillars or chrysalis could be eaten by a chipmunk? I have seen one in the area. I’m also wondering if the final generation of butterflies will be encouraged to stay, and possibly lay more eggs, if the weather remains warmer than usual. Today’s high was in the 30’s.
     Thanks for this great resource

     1. Hi Sharon, not sure about chipmunks, but I’ve heard of mice predation

        common Monarch Predators

        1. Thanks Tony,
           I’ll try to prevent the possibility of that predator next year.
           Always learning!
           Thanks again,
           Sharon

146. I was able to raise 3 generations of monarchs this year here in central Va. Just released 20 4th generation, 2nd & 3rd week of Sept. 2017. One particular lesson I learned is to count & check my cats when cleaning the cages. I left one out & it formed a rather small chrysalis under a window sill(I think it starved). It eclosed but deformed. So take a head count please. I also needed more milkweed. I often supplement by picking out in the wild. Well I forgot that the nearby cornfield was air sprayed. Needless to say I lost some babies. All in all I was able to care for & release about 50.

147. I wanted my new garden in Salem, South Carolina to become a butterfly garden. I needed more butterflies so I ordered eggs from Rose Franklin Perennials. They arrived 8/23 — all eggs had hatched into 14 tiny cats plus one large cat that had “hitchhiked” on a plant I purchased in the same order. The big one quickly matured and pupated. The others were fed from a very large tropical milkweed plant from which I made stem cuttings, managing to raise them all to their chrysalis stage. All 15 Monarchs were healthy and in perfect condition and were released on 9/15. I felt so proud.
     Now I find I have 10 Swallowtail caterpillars on my small dill plants. I hope to assist them to the chrysalis stage and perhaps overwinter them.

148. This has been my best year since starting to raise monarchs 10 years ago. I am in southeastern PA. I have released 248 females so far. 179 of those would be the migrating generation. I released 252 males, 192 of them are the migrators. I still have 40 healthy looking chrysalises and 8 caterpillars. So, I have released over 500 and I’m still counting. I did have some issues.
     Stopped growing or eating-8
     Tachinid wasps-3
     Deformed wings-3
     Black Death or bacteria-2
     I used Tony’s suggestion this year of keeping eggs in plastic containers until hatching. That worked great and I feel improved my numbers. I also expanded to 5 large tents so there was no overcrowding. I kept the caterpillars separated by size in those tents. This made it much easier to keep track of the small caterpillars. The tent with chrysalises hanging was rotated so no chrysalises opened over caterpillars. The tents were bleached between batches. Most of the butterflies were raised from eggs. Caterpillars were added if they were on milkweed that I collected for food. I grow swamp and common milkweed in my garden and tropical milkweed in pots. I used Tony’s suggestion of growing the milkweed seeds in milk cartons and putting them out around Super Bowl Sunday. That was very successful. I do use a different method of feeding. I take the cheap plastic containers and cut a hole in the lid. I put floral oasis in the container, fill it with water, and put the lid on. Then I put the milkweed stalks into the oasis. My milkweed lives for at least 4 or 5 days in the oasis. I also observed the caterpillars, looking for any that seemed “not right”. I would put a caterpillar that seemed ill in one of Tony’s tiny pop up cages. I would keep it separated until I was sure there was nothing wrong with it. It would then go back in with the rest. Thanks Tony for all the great suggestions! I feel it greatly improved my numbers this year. I even adopted out about 50 eggs and caterpillars to a friend that raises so there would be no overcrowding. I get my milkweed for feeding from 3 friends that raise it in their gardens, a patch at my church, my garden, and any other place I can find it that I know it is pesticide free.

     1. I forgot to mention that keeping some milkweed away from the mass planting of milkweed and garden really helped with the aphid problem. I had pots of tropical milkweed about 70 feet from the garden and it is still aphid free. I also planted swamp milkweed away from the large area of milkweed in my garden and the aphids just found that recently when it was no longer needed for food.

149. My raising efforts have been dismal. I collected a total of approximately 20 eggs from Milkweed over about 3 weeks. Out of those 2o eggs, 4 caterpillars emerged. And from the 4 caterpillars only one Monarch was released. Very discouraging. On the bright side. I tagged 24 Monarchs in the wild so decided maybe next year I will just tag instead of trying to raise them.

150. Thanks, Tony, for all your great information about raising monarchs! This was my first year, and I’ve successfully released 43 adults (27 females and 16 males). I just released my final one yesterday!

     I started off with 53 eggs, but lost 10 along the way. Two went missing early after hatching, and some failed to thrive during early molts. I suspect it may have been too damp in a few of my sealed containers. Next year I’ll omit the damp paper towel lining the bottom. I did not test any for OE, nor did I tag any. My final 34 eclosed after August 15, which I figure was my official start of migrating season (I’m in Palatine, IL at 42º latitude). I collected most of the eggs from the small patch of common milkweed in my garden (I only found one on my butterfly weed). I also collected a few from a public garden near my work. This fall, I added a couple swamp milkweed plants. I’ve also added more native late-blooming plants for the migrators. I really enjoyed this new hobby, and can’t wait for next year!

151. 9/23/17. Today I tagged and released my last monarch for the season. A lower number this year, only 13 compared to 30 in 2015 & 2016. Wondering if the weather is the cause. Very hot here in St. Louis MO this summer. Anyway, I had 7 males and 6 females, no casualties, for a 100% success rate! I have been raising monarchs for about 12 years now.

152. I raised my first monarch’s last year, and released a total of 25, for the season. I could see there would be many more, this year, when I filled up my small and large cages early in the season. I’ve purchased a second large cage, from the Monarch Butterfly Shop and that gave the the extra space I needed. I”ve brought eggs in and also small cats. Our first one this year was released July 8th, with a steady stream since then. So far this season we’ve released 130. Our recent monarchs have been huge, beautiful butterflies.

     I’m guessing about 45 to 50 left to go. Hope they hurry before cold weather is here.
     We are located in West Liberty, Iowa.
     Lesson’s learned is to never take anything for granted. Always make sure there is not silk stuck to you so you don’t pull down a chrysalis. Also when moving a chrysalis, mist it lightly with water and it will come off easily. Another great item is to use a small paint by number paint brush to move the cats. With this method, I very rarely have to touch a caterpillar.
     I took a video and sent it to my mom this morning of my butterfly garden “full” of beautiful butterflies. She said it was magical.

153. I released my very first ever monarch butterfly on Sept. 20, 2017. I raised it from a approx. 0.5 inch caterpillar I found on a milkweed plant (I believe is a Sullivant) in our backyard in two large plastic cups, one upright and other upside-down placed on top of it. Holes for air were drilled in the top surface. This enabled the milkweed cuttings to be placed in a water pick, making it easy to water the cuttings. It was fun to watch our “baby” (we called it “Alpha”) grow from 0.5 inch to nearly 2 inch before it crawled to the surface, attached itself lengthwise, went into a J formation, and then overnight turned into a green chrysalis. Almost precisely 14 days later the butterfly emerged (again in the morning). I took it outside and placed the cup sideways and placed a couple cotton balls soaked in Juicy Juice on edge for it to feed on. However, it didn’t seem to be any hurry to get out of the cup. Since its wings were looking good, I moved it out on the table and attempted to feed it the cotton balls. But it crawled on my hand — this was an exciting moment! A minute later it flapped its wings and flew off up into a tree about 20 feet high. It was gone from my life!

     This is late in the season and the milkweed plants in our garden in Urbana, Illinois are about done, even though it is very warm here now. We have one more late season monarch to hatch. “Beta” became a chrysalis on Sept. 17th. It will be interesting to compare its emergence and release with Alpha’s.

     1. I released my second monarch, Beta, on Sept. 26th, 10 days after pupation. It flew into the same tree that Alpha did.

154. Found 15 caterpillars late summer. Red wasp got one before I could retrieve it. Out of the 14 retrieved, 11 formed crysalises, three died as they formed their “J”. (Reason unknown.) The first crysalis now dark black (leading me to believe this will not be a viable butterfly). Today I released my first monarch butterfly of this season. A large female. Nine more to go. Not too many adult monarchs in my garden this year. I do have a lot of painted ladies, just like most everyone else.

155. What is the OE test some people are talking about? I raised 50 monarchs this year from different stages( eggs, cats). Had 2 chrysalis fail to complete. Lots of males, not as many females. I still have 30 chrysalis yet to mature. They still have at least a week and a half.

156. I forgot to say that I also dip the food I plan to feed the cats in a bleach water solution, then rinse it off, before feeding it to them. This is to kill off OE.

157. I made a mistake on my first post. I lost one chrysalis when I opened the zipper and knocked a newbie down. 🙁 and when one cat pupated, the face cap apparently did not come off and it looked like the chrysalis was upside down — a very weird shape. I left it for a few days until it was apparent it had no chance.

     I just received the OE testing kit from U of Ga — I tested last year in Florida and every single butterfly had heavy OE. I now bleach the Florida eggs. My Michigan monarchs have all been released (the ones I raised from eggs) but I found some big, fat cats recently in Lansing, Michigan. I am anxious to test them because, so far, my Michigan babies have been extremely healthy.

158. This is my 4th year raising monarchs in Long Beach, CA. My numbers this year are a slightly lower than last year, 117 released, 2 chrysalides, 12 cats instars 2-4. I’ve had fewer losses this year caused by the tachnid fly due to a couple of practices I have improved: one is increased use of fly traps (bags filled with smelly water that can be purchased at garden stores) and frequent searches for eggs that I bring indoors before hatching (in past years too many little ones were already infected). There have also been only a few suspected infections from OE due to 1) cutting back all milkweed mid-June and again in August, and 2) dipping leaves with eggs into a water & bleach solution to kill off any OE on the egg or leaf. I don’t due this 100% of the time, however, and this is something I could improve on. I regularly wash the smaller plastic rearing containers I use with a bleach & water solution to kill bacteria and OE. I also sometimes use pop-up mesh laundry hampers with zip closures and I tape closed any openings. These work very well, but take more space. Although this can be a time consuming hobby, I can continue to find satisfaction in contributing to a healthy monarch population and plan to continue next year.

159. Patty and I raised about 370 monarchs this year (she could probably give you an exact number.) She did most of the work raising the caterpillars, and I helped collect eggs, and raised all different kinds of milkweed to see which works the best, and collecting common milkweed. She also gave a hundred or so eggs and at least 50 small caterpillars to school children to raise. I took a dozen eggs to work a month ago 17 and raised them in the break area so my co-workers could watch them grow. I just released the last of those a few days ago. People are asking me to bring more, and I said they’ll have to wait until June because there are no more this year. These guys are headed to Mexico. 🙂

     The biggest problem we had this year was otherwise healthy looking butterflies emerging with damaged wings. And most of those were the last generation. I don’t know what’s up with that. 🙁

     Another problem was chrysalises on our bathroon wall, which has scrubbable paint. The caterpillars could walk on it just fine but it was too slippery for the butterflies. So some of those butterflies fell while their wings were still wet when they tried to adjust their footing. (the ones that just hung from the dried up chrysalis without trying to move did fine) So next year we won’t let them “J” on the bathroom wall. Maybe I can set up a screen tent outside for the last instar cats.

     I learned the easiest way to rehang a fallen chrysalis, or just one that needs to be moved: clip its little stem at the top (I’m sure there’s a name for that) with a binder clip. Then hang the binder clip up somewhere with a piece of string. That is *so* much easier and more secure than trying to tie or glue a string onto them.

     The mama butterflies like swamp milkweed and “hairy balls” milkweed (a giant tropical kind; one of them in my garden is well over 8 feet tall from a seed planted in April) a lot better than the common milkweed or honeyvine. I didn’t grow regular tropical MW this year, I’ll try it again next year. The cats loved honeyvine leaves, and they grew really fast and fat on it.

     I’m already planning my garden for next year. Gonna plant a bed of tall zinnias and tall spiky celosias (“Flamingo Feather”?), and another bed with Mexican sunflowers and purpletop vervain (verbena bonariensis). And a few tropical milkweeds in the garden. We have perennials already, but we need some annual and tropical nectar plants to finish out the fall.

160. Wolfville, Nova Scotia – This is the first year I have had Monarchs in my pollinator garden. (only 2 that we saw) I didn’t see any eggs on my swamp MW, but while cleaning up one day I found 4 5th instar cats! First lesson, work out when is the best time to spot eggs and look regularly! We weren’t prepared, but from reading on Tony’s site we knew what was needed and improvised. Second lesson, be prepared, of course! I will be ordering a cube or two for next year. We were very fortunate and were able to release 3 males and 1 female on a sunny day. Third lesson, once released, they still need to sit in the sun for quite a long time. Next year I will try Tony’s second option of sitting the cages outside in the sun for a time before releasing them. And finally I have learned from reading right here, what others have learned! For example, it would be worth finding some tropical milkweed seeds because the cats love it. It is not worth planting more tuberosa because the cats don’t love it. It would be worth finding some Tithonia seeds because Monarch butterflies love it. I have a new word doc to remind of these, and other things, for next year. What an amazing experience this has been.

161. September 23rd, Nashville Tennessee. After not much success using netting over outside caterpillars, I bought cages and brought them inside this year. Fall results – collected 30 tiny cats and eggs (because something was eating them even earlier that usual). 1 accident death (dropped), 2 some kind of injury/unexplained deaths, 10 chrysalis, 3 jays, and 14 still eating. The chrysalis should start emerging in 2 days.

     I only saw one butterfly come through, but there must have been 3 because there are 3 different ages of the ones I gathered – glad I have 3 cages! Not much milkweed left because it is dying back so despite good rains and warm weather.

     This year, we had more in the spring than prior years, and fewer in the Fall. But maybe more are on the way.

162. I’m in California, at the beach in Santa Cruz. We have a Monarch Festival each October. Monarchs are arriving daily, probably having flown from the Rockies, ready for a party. I have a multitude of zinnias that they love for the nectar, and Mexican milkweed has generously reseeded itself from last year so the butterflies are finding it. I found several eggs under the leaves yesterday so the exciting process is beginning. I live in a mobile home park and those of us who are interested in the butterflies are attempting to get milkweed growing all over the park and make it a kind of sanctuary for them. People walking by my space love seeing the monarchs and painted ladies flying all around. Aren’t they wonderful? Thanks to all for your comments and information and encouragement.

163. In the 3 days I released 14 monarch butterflies from South Florida.

     The problem I had is when I cut branches from the tropical milkweeds and put them in recipients with water, very frequently they went limp within a couple of hours. I tried cutting them underwater, scoring them, etc. Nothing seemed to improved the chances of the branches staying hydrated.

     Any suggestions?

     Thanks

     1. Hi Felipe, check out this page for cuttings info:

        Using Cuttings to Feed Caterpillars

164. I had a good year with very little disasters. I had about 50% survival rate but, considering I released almost 500 Monarchs, I considered that acceptable because only 3% of them would have survived in the wild. I have plans to improve that survival rate next year. I keep very detailed records and know that I lose the caterpillars during their 1st and second instars because of overcrowding. Most of my milkweed patch disappeared a couple of years ago and I am trying to bring it back. I used to put 5 ft tall cages over the milkweed for the caterpillars that were in their 4th instar to eliminate the twice a day feeding and reduce the overcrowding. I plan to keep less caterpillars per container and hopefully use my outside cage again next year.
     I only grow common milkweed because the leaves are large and provide more food. They also attract aphids but not as much as the swamp milkweed that has very small leaves that do not provide a lot of food. I grow tropical milkweed because the Monarchs seem to like to lay their eggs on it but, again, the leaves are small.
     Right now I still have 4 caterpillars that were hatched on 9/15 and 2 chrysalis. I have been raising Monarchs for 16 years. I still learn something new every year.

165. I am a PreK Teacher at Glenburn Elementary School in Glenburn, Maine. In mid/end August, my mother-in-law sent me a photo of Monarch caterpillars spotted in her back yard in Scarborough, Maine and asked me what they were. (I was excited!!!) She collected 3 and placed them in a container with milkweed and a cheesecloth top for the 2 hour drive to Glenburn on August 27. The caterpillars transformed into pupas on Aug. 28, 31 & Sept 1. The first formed on the cheesecloth top, the other two formed about 2 cm apart on the a branch. I moved the pupas to my live butterfly habitat. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074MMB3ST) Our Monarchs emerged on September 14, 15, 16. (Yikes! 17 days had me worried! I had only raised Painted Lady butterflies prior to this and those are much quicker to emerge. The Painted Ladies are also very quick to feed on fruit and these Monarchs were not.) We read books about how and what butterflies eat. We put cut fruit and water out for the first Monarch and released all three Monarchs with my 3 & 4 year old students and their parents in Glenburn on September 18. Each butterfly came out on my hand and walked onto a student’s hand before flying off. One butterfly flew and landed in our grassy area several times for about an hour and even landed on my head! I used your website’s male/female photo to teach my students and they were able to correctly identify that we had 1 male and 2 female Monarchs. I must admit, Monarchs are much more exciting and spectacular to raise than Painted Ladies!!! 🙂 What an amazing way to begin our school year! 😉

166. Hi,

     I think today was day 13 for my chrysalis. The wings have turned black as well as the prosbiscos. Yesterday the abdomen started to become visible. It was darkish green and now it’s a reddish brown and the very top of the chrysalis is still green but I can now see the rings of the rest of the abdomen. I know it sounds like NPV but I’m just wondering because of its continued development. I guess I’ll know for sure in the morning.
     All the colors have been symmetrical, which is a good thing, right? I guess the black wings though are foretelling.
     I live in Connecticut and I have another caterpillar that hasn’t J’ed yet. I’ve had him for several days and I’m not sure how long they stay in their last I star before pupating. If he’s unhappy with the netting I’ve given him to pupate from, will he still do or just keep eating or die? That may be a silly question but this is my first time attempting to raise them. Hopefully next year goes better! Thank you for all the information on this site. It’s been extremely useful.

     1. To make things worse, I just found a tachinid fly in my house. I don’t understand their life cycle and how it got inside. Maybe it came from the sick caterpillars I euthanized last week? This is very confusing!

167. We planted swamp milkweed in June. They all were infested with aphids so I followed the instructions that were given to use a soapy dish detergent solution to get rid of them. They came back so I applied the solution two more times throughout 2-3 weeks being careful to wash it off with plain water. The milkweed did not produce any flowers and then I just gave up on the aphid problem. (we planted last year and the milkweed produced many flowers) So today I was going to cut the plants down since there are only sparse green leaves, many shriveled brown leaves and they are totally infested with aphids. Much to my shock there are at least a dozen or more caterpillars on the plants. Is there anything I can do now to help them survive as I am really not equipped with any butterfly cages for them?

     1. I used a soapy water spray as well on my aphid infested butterfly weed. It was a plant based dish detergent. It killed them instantly but I’m afraid it may have poisoned the caterpillars as the three that came off that plant after spraying- two I had to euthanize and the last formed this chrysalis that I’ve posted about. I haven’t kind much info on the correlation between that soapy spray and monarchs dying. But I’ve been told they’re sensitive to everything. So, I don’t know. Hopefully you have good luck with yours! 🙂

        1. I have just learned of aluminum foil ‘mulch’ to deter aphids! So far, not a one on the milkweed that I’ve put back outside to regrow leaves! I verified its use, and am definitely using it next year!
           Kathy B, inverness, FL

     2. I had aphids on mine in the jar with the caterpillars and all became beautiful butterflies. 🙂

        1. My butterfly weed was totally infested today. I killed hundreds. Now I’ve found the black kind on my beautiful cosmos. I hope next year they can be under control! That’s awesome you’ve had such a great experience with raising butterflies.

168. I am in Virginia Beach, VA. This was my first year raising monarchs and I did not think to keep track of how many I had but I do know in general terms. I have two of the smaller cages and I believe I released about two dozen butterflies over all. The cats seemed to occur in two “waves”. In the earlier batch, I had one cat that attached to the roof of the cage then died (OE?). I had two chrysalides that split open horizontally and oozed goo, which I read could be due to pesticide poisoning but since they were all eating the same milkweed I’m not sure how that would have happened. The second wave has been much more heartbreaking as I have had 5 or 6 come out of their chrysalis either with crumpled wings or they looked perfectly healthy but were unable to fly and I had to euthanize them. I also found a butterfly in my yard that was not one I had raised but it also was unable to fly so perhaps the OE problem is worse this time of year(?). At this point I had decided not to bring any more cats in but my milkweed in the back yard had been chewed down to nubs and there were still cats eating. I bleached my one empty cage and brought 4 of the cats in. I fed them using the milkweed from my front yard which, even though I had seen quite a few eggs on it, still had a lot of leaves left. Of those four, one died after wandering around the cage and looking very unsteady, and one got halfway through making its chrysalis then died, so I don’t have much hope for the remaining two cats. I don’t know if they were sick from the get-go or if there is something about the other milkweed that is bad for them. I initially tried bringing eggs in but did not have any luck with getting them started that way. It has definitely been a learning process, and sometimes very sad. I do appreciate all the info on this site!

     1. I also found three chrysalises on the milkweed on the fence behind it so I was monitoring them. One morning I found that one of them had disappeared! I guess a mouse or rat took it? So at that point I brought the other two into one of my cages. One of them hatched today and its wings were crumpled and I had to euthanize it. 🙁

        1. Since this is your first year raising, do you know that their wings look crumpled at the beginning? Then within an hour they pump the fluid from their abdomen into their wings. Maybe you already know this. But watch a you tube video of the life cycle.

169. We started our Monarch garden three years ago and only had a few that first year which was not unexpected. Last year we had more, but only actually released about 10 after bringing in more than 20 cats. Flies seem to have gotten the rest, so this year, we started bringing in the eggs as we found them. There were more than 140 eggs in our garden in early Spring, and in now way were we ready for that as we only had one cage at the time and very little milkweed showing. We purchased another three cages and started incubating the eggs in small Tupperware-type containers. I won’t say it was smooth sailing after that as we did lose four to tachinid flies, but we’ve released 54 so far with another 18 still in chrysalis. Looking for a total of 72 this year, and will definitely be ordering yet more cages. If Spring starts out as vigorously next year as it did this year, we’ll be ready!

170. Hi have been raising monarchs wild in my garden for years in Mt laurel NJ, leaving everything up to nature, but this year had most of my common MW destroyed this year by mold and a swarm of MW tussock moths (first time I’ve ever seen them)! So my teen daughters and I bought 3 mesh cages and decided to aid in raising the migration. Began collecting eggs and small cats from my ravaged MW. When I release the last of them, it’ll be 33 healthy butterflies! We’ve had so much fun with it and just amazed at nature. Been harvesting milkweed from wooded areas around town. Daughters laughing at me as I would pull the car over at any given moment to cut and bag MW from the side of the road(always carrying scissors and trash bag in car)! Followed Tony’s advice to a tee to ensure good survival. 3 late stage casualties: flightless butterfly, one fell during pupation and didn’t eclose, and one turned black and was dead in chrysalis.
     My latest batch of 23 went through a stage of not eating and 3 died. The weather had dropped to 50s at night; I brought them indoors so I don’t think it was the cold. Was using some MW from a neighbors garden, and she does treat her lawn. Cats hardly ate for about a week. Switched out the MW and they went back to chomping. Was worried the whole batch would die off (from infection or poison) but they’re all eclosing healthily each day, though they’re on the smaller side I think. So it was probably the MW. Amazed the cats knew not to eat it! Next year I’ll add another cage to help keep them in batches. Thanks Tony for all your great advise and information! Ps – We all bought the “raise the migration shirts”. They’re so cool looking and comfortable!

171. This was my first year raising monarchs. Your website was a very valuable tool for me! I am proud to say that so far we have released 9 beautiful, healthy monarchs. I have one chrysalis left, plus one caterpillar hanging out in a J and one more that (hopefully!!) will make it as maybe a late migratory straggler. We live in Iowa and it was such a pleasure to release the monarchs and see others in our butterfly garden. I did sadly have 5 that did not make it – they made it about a quarter of the way through the chrysalis but stopped, then began leaking horrible green goo. It was so very upsetting but I’m glad we kept trying, because it was a discouraging start to the season. I plan to buy more equipment and even start tagging my released monarchs next year – I’m already looking forward to 2018!

     1. Also – in addition to raising bringing eggs indoors, I also had a lot of success in covering cats I found outside with a protective mesh bag to protect them from predators. Every single one I protected successfully turned into a butterfly, and it saved me from having to harvest all that milkweed. I used the 5-gallon paint strainer bags that Tony recommended and I plan to buy more next year because it was such a great method.

        1. Mary Beth that’s such a great idea with the paint strainer bags for cats in the garden! Can you give me details as to how you secure them at the bottom and/or where Tony posted this tip? Do you bunch it around the bottom of the plant or stake it in the ground? Did they chrysalize in the bag? I would love to do this next year in addition to bringing in the eggs. I just don’t have the MW capacity to bring them all in under my care, so I’d love to protect them in the garden. Thanks for sharing this tip!

           1. I am glad this is helpful! It is very important to secure the bottom as you point out. I only learned this after 4 caterpillars disappeared from the bags. It is a little tricky to encapsulate the plant with the bag, especially on butterfly MW which butterflies in my garden seem to prefer. You have to make sure all the branches make it inside the bag. I simply secured the bottom by tying it off with twine can’t string should do. I can’t remember where on the website I saw Tony’s recommendation. And yes the cats pupate right inside the bag. Sometimes they use the bag itself and other times they choose a MW leaf. I have even had two cats in one bag. Sometimes the cats ‘appeared’ in the bag, I assume the eggs were hatched and I hadn’t realized they were there. I have released 4 butterflies the one with two more chrysalides to go.

172. Hi, first of all thank you for all your posts, the information was so helpful and I look forward to each email. This was my first year trying to raise Monarch Butterfly’s. I learned a lot found it fun and interesting. At first I was sad and depressed the first 2 had tachinid flies and the third came out of the chrysalis and fell from it’s chrysalis and was not able to recover. The last 4 where healthy eggs and all 4 females flew away. That was so fun to let them go and I hope they make their migration journey. I look forward to more emails and advise for next year. Thanks – Sherrie

173. We have had an unprecedented number of caterpillars here in Western Massachusetts this season. We bring them into the elementary school classrooms for rearing, tagging and release. There have been times while in the field gathering food supplies that I have had to walk away from caterpillars for lack of space. I have been doing this for many years and this is my first experience with these numbers. I hope that this is good news for the population.

174. We are near Tampa, FL and this is our first year raising Monarchs. We’ve learned some hard lessons (flies, black death, predators) and experienced the emotional ride that goes with all of it. We use a screened “eating” cage and separate chrysalis box, both designed and constructed by my husband.

     Before Hurricane Irma, we set out three milkweed plants to get eggs for the final push of the year. We had no idea how many eggs until I had to transfer cats to new plants. I lost count at 100 caterpillars! We managed to have almost enough milkweed for them all and kept them safe through the storm. We have 90 chrysalises and 2 caterpillars eating squash now (no more milkweed )-: and pumpkins are hard to find in FL). Two will emerge today, with the bulk expected over the next 4 days.

     We are growing more milkweed (from seed and cuttings) for next year to expand the outdoor garden as well as more potted plants for the eating cage. The previous generation was 22 cats to Monarch — 100% success rate! With 100 cats, we did lose about 8 and one chrysalis is malformed, so we’ll wait and see for that one.

     Thanks for sharing all the information! We’ve learned a lot from reading the posts, especially about aphid and pest control with butterfly-friendly methods.

     1. Please post pics of what your husband built. I live just south of Jacksonville, FL

175. I released the last 4 monarchs yesterday, September 17, 2017. It’s always bittersweet. I released 78 healthy monarchs; 42 males and 36 females. No disease this year 🙂 I had one that couldn’t fly; he fell before his wings were dry and we didn’t notice him on the bottom but still lived on watermelon cocktails for 10 days and was otherwise perfect. Not sure why he couldn’t fly, he was perfect in every other way. I had one caterpillar attach chrysalis on the side of the tank. When I tried to rescue it to move it, I dropped it. One caterpillar stopped turning into chrysalis half way through the process and then basically turned to liquid. This was the most I have released, and also the most healthy ones. I only had 3 that didn’t become healthy flyers. I collected eggs this year and had lots of luck with that process. I put the leaf on a wet paper towel and watched when they hatched and then moved the babies to a new leaf. This worked great. Next year I will try the leaf slips. I can’t wait until next June to start all over. Overall, it was a wonderful year for butterflies <3

     1. I had a caterpillar make a chrysalis on the side of my tank too! Nothing I could do. Naturally it fell and died. When i put my tank away after releasing my final butterfly on Sunday I could still see the silk button … made me a little sad but I have to remind myself that I’m helping save the species, not the individual.

     2. Hi, I don’t see a link to post a new comment, so I hope you don’t mind me asking you a question. It’s my first time raising caterpillars and 12 days since the chrysalis formed. A couple of days ago the wings started to become visible with colors. Now they’re completely visible but pretty much black and iridescent. It is uniform but still seems off. A portion of the back is also lack with the rest green. I can’t find that many photos online. Does this sound like NPV to you? I’m pretty disappointed but I know this happens. If you could give me your opinion, I’d appreciate it. Thanks! 🙂

        1. Hi Alli, all you can do is separate, monitor and see if the butterfly emerges. When the chrysalis starts turning black, it’s often bacterial or viral, but you can always monitor to make sure…good luck!

           1. Thanks! I took it down as I was going to dispose of it last night. It had leaked a few drops of clear fluid as well.
              When I looked at it this morning the back of it seems more developed, different shade of green but developing what looks like the abdomen?
              When I took it down last night I had put too much pressure on it by mistake an felt the wing crinkle or maybe it was just the outside. Regardless, it seems like there is little hope for this.
              Does the butterfly need its cremaster to enclose or does it leave it behind? I’d attached the string to it when I moved the chrysalis to rehang. I’m afraid I did a few things wrong and might have contributed to this chrysalis failing.

176. This year was my all time high for success here in San Diego, CA! I started early so there would be more to populate for the migration. Though I only had about 15 during the majority of the season reach butterfly status and release, during the migration group I’ve been able to successfully rear approximately 50 adults and just released 45 of them. So in total, I was able to raise approximately 65 butterflies for release. Only a few minor issues with those that didn’t make it, not included in the count and those were most likely the ones that I found outside of the pens and felt sorry for and brought them in with the others. I had two that did not dry their wings properly, one was up against something that didn’t allow the top of one side to elongate properly, the other fell down and though I did find it early while the wings were still soft and moist, they didn’t properly dry. 🙁 I released all of them and hoped for the best, putting the handicapped on the Zinnia hoping to give them a boost of energy to maybe fly away. I think the reason I got so many is that I tried something different for the migration group. I bought three really large MW plants at the nursery that came with a couple cats included. I put one in the clean pen upon arrival home. The other two out put out in the middle of the yard for a few days away from everything else to keep predators at bay, mostly the spiders. Then, I placed the other two plants into the pen and let nature take its course! It was hard to count how many there were until overnight all of the MW plants were eaten down from the top with only leaves at the lower half. Then I was able to count over 30, which was still low to what finally developed into butterflies. Of course, by the time I realized how many there were, the supply of MW at the nursery was extremely low with slim pickings. All was well as they were on their last nibbles and didn’t even need the additional MW. All was wonderful. Another thing, I didn’t move any of the chrysalides unless I actually needed to due to their potential issues with dying leaves or bad location. I believe this helped in their survival. The less I played with them, the better off they were. Feeling pretty happy about the success rate this year, best year ever!

177. This was my first year raising Monarchs. I live in Trumansburg, NY.
     I had been very worried because for the past 3 years I had only seen a few monarchs each year. Although I’ve always had a lot of milkweed in my yard, I had not seen any eggs or cats. This year I saw one large cat the second week of July and the next week saw a female laying and collected eggs. I collected eggs, small cats and every stage of cat during July and August. I even brought in 4 chrysalises in September. 2 days ago I brought in one more large cat.
     In all I raised 31 monarchs to adulthood. One of the last 2 chrysalises I brought in was infected with tachinid, and one died of unknown cause. Still have one last cat.
     I used your cube with excellent results. I bought a pack of 4 Ohomr pop-up mesh screen food nets from Amazon for $10 that worked really well as places to hang Chrysalises and have butterflies eclose.
     I have seen so many more Monarchs in the field this year!
     Thanks so much for all your work. This has been a great experience.

178. My first year raising these butterflies. Very successful. Didn’t count but at least 20 made it from eggs or instars to adult bf. A few cats picked from a neighbor’s mw patch didn’t make it. One that didn’t form a cremaster and I fussed over way to much turned black in chrysalis. My fault! Should have just rolled a face cloth under it and let it be. One other also had Black Death. Stopped gathering eggs for the season but STRANGE occurrences. My husband found a 4th in star walking down our cement walkway far, far from my milkweed. Another was plucked from our swimming pool, still alive. I rinsed it off and gave it mw. They’re both doing well chowing down. Another chrysalis was hanging in the cage for well over 0 days, then started to develop a dark spot. Another week plus, and finally a healthy one eclosed this AM and is drying its wings. My lesson is to help them stay from harms way but let them be. Nature has been in charge for eons so just provide clean, healthy mw and living space leaving the rest to Nature.

179. This year has been a banner year for me in Lakeville, New York. I found 57 Monarch eggs. But due to I’m not sure why I only managed to tag and let 15 go. I know this is a low per cent but it’s more than any other year. I bring the milkweed leaf in, put it in a plastic container with the stem on wet paper towels. After they hatch I raise them in aquariums with milkweed planted in soil in 2 liter bottles. I cut the bottles down to about 5 – 6 inches high. Fill with soil and milkweed. When they have stripped most of the leaves or when the leaves are too dry I exchange it for a fresh plant. This works for me. I stand the aquariums on their side so the opening is facing out. I have enough screens to cover, so they don’t get out. I hold the screens on with bungee cords. In 2016 and 2015 I did not find any Monarch eggs, so I could not raise any.

     1. Hi Carol, congrats on finding all those eggs. You don’t mention where you’re losing most of the monarchs, but 15 out of 57 is a 26% survival rate. If you have problems with moldy eggs or eggs not hatching, check out the section on bringing in eggs:

        How to Hunt, Gather, and Protect Monarch Eggs

        Congrats on your releases and good luck next season, Tony

     2. I loose the Monarch catapillars at various sizes. When I transfer from milkweed plant to fresh plant. I count them as I put them on the fresh milkweed plant! Then when I transfer to new plant I don’t have the same count. They just seem to have disappeared. Don’t have any idea what happens to the missing ones.

        1. Hi Carol, you don’t have to ‘physically’ transfer them to new plants. If you set a new cuttings container next to an old one, they will crawl over. it’s easier to keep track of them and spread them out if you use stem cuttings instead of plants:

           Transferring Caterpillars

180. Well my first year of raising Monarch’s is under my belt. I had seven caterpillars and released four female and three male Monarch’s last week. I released them at a nearby greenhouse facility that currently has hundreds of outside flowers. And coincidence or not, I have seven grandchildren – four girls and three boys, so one Monarch for each of them! I live in Mt. Wolf, Pennsylvania. Thoroughly enjoying this new venture. Thank you for your wonderful website and e-mails. I have so much more to learn about Monarch’s and am enjoying reading everyone’s posts. Until next Spring…….

181. This was our first year raising monarchs. I had a very small butterfly cage, so I only brought in 5 eggs. 3 hatched and made it to butterfly! We just released them last week – two females and one male. We are in Schenectady, NY. We now own a much larger cage so hope to raise more next year. Thank you for your informative website.

182. This is my first year raising monarch caterpillars. I live in southern NH and it had been a long time since I had seen a monarch caterpillar! About 5 years ago I had some milkweed plants pop up in my garden and I decided to leave them there to see if I would attract any monarchs. Every year I would check hoping to see some. One year I found 2 tiny cats. but I couldn’t get them inside when I found them and by the time I was ready they were gone. This year though has been amazing! I have taken in a total of 20 caterpillars! 15 from the milkweed in my garden and 5 from my parents property on a lake. I only lost 2 cats. Both seemed to have black death. One had been injured when I brought it in and the other I’m not sure what happened. I raised the cats in a fish tank and it worked out great. I cut milkweed from you garden usually two at a time and wrapped the cut end in wet paper towels and put them in little Rubbermaid containers. I used kitchen skurrs across the top of the tank for them to j on and covered the top with some cheese cloth secured with a rubber band to keep them from escaping. After they formed their chrysalis’ I could move the skurrs to a mesh pop up laundry hamper. I have had to move 2 chrysalis’ from leaves one from the side of the tank and one chrysalis my nephews found inside an over turned row boat. So far I have had 100% of my butterflys make it to release. 5males and 4 females with 10 left to go! My 2 sisters also raised caterpillars this year. One took in about 20 and the other only 4 and have had similar success. Thanks to some late night studying on this web site i became the expert in the family. So thank you for all the awesome info.! The biggest thing I have learned from this experience is to take in the caterpillars when you see them! There were more at the lake that none of us took and we only found the one chrysalis in the row boat. I also found a poor dead butterfly that looked like he was killed or died before his wings even had a chance to dry all the way. Hopefully the monarchs will be back next year. This was fun for me and my kids but mostly me ?

183. Hi Tony, This year I shared about 60 eggs and caterpillars in June and July. I went on vacation so a few people split up the cats and eggs that were left so I’m not sure how many were released from that group. In late July I started up again and found 160 eggs just in my yard. Several were blanks or chewed into, so there was some loss there. There seemed to be more spiders this year. There was very little problems which I was very happy about, and whatever it was wasn’t contagious…tachnid fly damage likely. The cats were little piglets eating everything in site and big. However the biggest loss was due to my clumsy carpal tunnel hands. I ended up squooshing quite a few tiny ones. Only one butterfly emerged with crumpled wings. It couldn’t expand them and ended up dragging it’s poor swollen abdomen around. It only lasted a few days with care. All groups were tested for OE with a microscope and none had it. I’m surprised there weren’t any others with deflated wings. Last year I had a few. So I ended up releasing 131 this Fall season. There is still one more chrysalis about ready to pop so that will make 132. The cages are very easy to keep clean. I prefer them to the plastic bug boxes, but had to use some boxes due to how many I had. A bit clumsy to clean afterward, but they work well. The only disappointment with them was both of the zippers broke off on one of the really big cages. I probably can recycle it for another use but the zipper is now kaput. I was very happy with the tropical milkweed I started from cuttings at the end of the season last year. I kept them alive (but scraggly) all winter and potted them in the spring. They are still gorgeous outside. My common milkweed is still nice and green. It spread by several shoots this year. My red milkweed seemed to be favored by aphids and milkweed bugs. The milkweed bugs did the most damage. I tried something new this year also. There was a second instar caterpillar on a milkweed before vacation, so I covered it with a nylon stocking piece on the plant. When I came back it was still there, so I brought it inside to raise. I’m trying to save some of the seed pods on my red milkweed by wrapping a piece of nylons around them. The aphids and milkweed bugs were really chowing down on them. So we’ll see how that goes. This year I’ll do the tropical milkweed cuttings over winter again. They do grow leggy fast with just a sunny window, so frequent pinching back helped. This year I’ll start the cuttings later so they don’t grow so spindly and fast. My garden is small and the common milkweed was developing too many seed pods, so I cut several off and gave them to the cats. I found by doing this, the plants continued to grow leaves which I needed more than pods. This is the second year I planted Tithonia in several spots and it’s still the monarchs’ favorite flower here. They also preferred stiff goldenrod. The only milkweed that aren’t performing all that great in my garden are Sullivants and Poke. I did find some eggs on both, but hardly any. They seem to get moldy and buggy faster than the other types. The Sullivants just doesn’t seem to like the environment here although it is growing a bit after 2 years. The cats don’t seem fond of it. I’m in SE Wisconsin and have only seen one monarch this past week which is surprising with all the nectar flowers. However everyone on this block has lawn spray service (grrrrrrr!) and that may be the reason. A lot of those signs have gone up in lawns. Would like to get back to tagging next year. Had quite a few bossy cats this year stealing silk from other jhangers and chrysalides. So several times I had to anchor up fallen ones. I had to hold one on a qtip while it made it’s chrysalis. It was a really good learning experience having so many this year. Exhausting though with all the other stuff to do around here, but fun. Thanks for the great information you put out.

184. I released 5 Monarchs, 3 male and 2 female. No deaths or illnesses to report, 5 out of 5 were successful and healthy. Three lessons learned: If you see a caterpillar outside and it’s little, bring it inside. Chances are it will not survive, even if it’s on a potted Milkweed plant on your deck. Every cat I assumed was safe outside was killed by predators. Lesson Two – be patient. I came very close to throwing out my first two caterpillars because I was convinced they were dead (both had not moved for over 24 hours). I was going to throw them out before I left for work, found it too sad and decided to do it after work. Lo and behold, I came home from work and both were very much alive munching on milkweed (that is how I learned how molting behavior!). Lesson Three: If this is your first year raising Monarchs, try not to worry so much about every little thing – Monarchs have been around for centuries and know what to do.

     1. Linda g Menomonee Falls , wi I had great success with over 12 which I brought in the house and released. One chrysalis never open…Don’t know why. Over 8 opened on their own outside.

185. Hello,
     Milkweed grows wild in my yard. This year there was a monarch hanging around on them. A week or so later we had baby caterpillars. We watched them eat the leaves, and watch them grow. Everyday we would check if they were still there. All of a sudden one day they disappeared. I just now found 2 chrysallis, one is on top of a fence, and the other is on a semi dead peppermint plant. I have many photos. I am very excited. What blows mind is how far these caterpillars travel for their last stage. They have traveled at least 10 feet from the area where they were eating their milk weed. I live in New Jersey, in the pine barrens of Ocean County, NJ.

186. Middle Tennessee
     I did not keep count! I do know that I have had over 75. I collect eggs and babies from a nearby wild patch of common milkweed. I personally have released about 20 males and maybe 10 females – a lot more males for sure. I usually give the chrysalides to families with children or to school groups. I LOVE getting the excited facebook posts, photos and texts from the kids and their families. Just today I took 3 to a little girl for her birthday and gave 5 to a teacher to take to her 3rd grade class. I also got my daughter in Southern NJ started and now she is hooked!

     As for problems, I had 1 that could not shed its skin to form a chrysalis – was sooo sad to watch it try so hard. I did euthanize it. I was away last week and left my husband on caterpillar duty and I came home to find one had died… Not sure how or when. Immediatelly cleaned the cage and seperated everyone that was in it. I have 22 babies and 4 eggs, 6 fatties ready to J and 6 in chrysalis right now. I also have one that broke its cremaster and have it propped up by the mesh wall. We still have more time to raise more here in Middle TN.

187. I live in Florida, so my butterflies do not migrate…..however I still love to see them! 2016 I raised 120. 2017 so far I have released 1,799 HEALTHY Monarchs. Hurricane Irma really damaged the butterfly population. I caught 15 before the storm and had 7 emerge the day after the hurricane. It was a challenge to get them to eat a honey solution. When I released them I was crushed at the fact that all the flowers had been stripped of greenery. So sad.

     1. I too live in Central FL & Irma had a big impact on us. Before she came I found my sad stalks covered in cats, so I rushed to my nursery to get 7 mw (they were sad, but had leaves) which they ate–and had to eat stalks. I lost a few, but 15 went into chrysalis, 3 emerged yesterday. I did find a Queen in the mix, so back I went to my nursery and now have 1cage of cats and 1cage of chrysalis’. We’ve already released 4. This is my 1st year, and I’ve learned to plant that mw in stages!!! I’m watching 2 chrysalis’ that are turning dark-they are ones that fell when the others were eating stalks…we re-attached them so are hanging…I’ve learned so much this year from these beauties, and it’s not over yet 🙂 Kathy B Inverness, FL

     2. I did not realize that our butterflies don’t migrate. I need to investigate. So how long can I keep raising them? I live just south of Jacksonville FL

        1. Hi Charlene, in your region some may migrate to central/south Florida and some may still go to Mexico…not much research on this topic.

           1. I’m in Melbourne FL and pleased to report 2017 was my first yr raising monarchs. I raised 4 generations, 120 chrysalises that produced 90 healthy monarchs with 30 deaths. I’m saddened by the deaths which appeared to be OE in the Hurricane Irma batch. That I managed to survive a hurricane and parent 80 caterpillars in cages is something I’m proud of.

              My biggest lesson was to avoid cage overcrowding. I follow Tony’s advice most of the time, keeping a max of 30 cats per cage. But going into a storm w/80 cats– I had no choice but put 40 in one cage and 40 in another. Several black chrysalises and deformities resulted along w/healthy ones.

              Found my first Queen ever which delighted my heart! Learned so much this year from Tony and my new friend, Sandra Anderson. She raises 5 kinds of butterflies and is a wealth of knowledge. Although my new hobby is work, It’s very satisfying and I love it.

188. Sorry to say I had no caterpillars this year (live in Ohio). The milkweed did well and had Monarch visitors plus think I saw a few laying eggs but nothing came of it. There were none last year either. The year before I had about 25. I don’t know what is going on. I don’t use pesticides so something must be getting to the eggs. I will try again next year.

189. Here in Brookings, Oregon on the Northern Coast my Husband and I for the very first time raised seven Monarchs – six Female and one Male. It was a very tough time to be newbies because we had a huge fire this summer “Chetco Bar Fire” largest in the nation. This fire created very thick smoke for us and the air quality was dangerous. We notice that all of our Chrysalises took much longer to eclose than we thought they would. Ours were in a habitat outside and took 22 to 26 days to Eclose we thought the lengthy timeframe may be a result of the Smokey air but of course we really don’t know why they all took so long. Each one was very healthy and all of ours choose to fly in a north direction when released. We tagged them B7476 – B7482 . Would love to know if any are located during their journey. Randi.Hewitt@charter.net

190. I have been participating in raise and release monarchs for about 10+ years. Their population in my area seems to have decreased. Possibly due to the state mowing grass and milkweed along the highways. This year I was only able to find 2 caterpillars. I raised and released them both safely. 1 male and 1 female. #savethe monarchs.

191. Apple Valley, Mn: I collected 140 eggs and 10 cats but made a mistake of too much moisture in the initial containers and lost 12 first instars. 🙁 However I have tagged and released 111 with 8 more to go. One of the cats I found was parasitized. It had a blackened hole in it’s side. And I lost 3 to disease.

192. My neighbor and I have fostered Monarchs together for 2 years. This is my 3rd year and the best. I live e western suburbs of MPLS. This partnership with friend and neighbor Maria meant we could both go on vacation for 10 days. Last year 3 neighbors worked together. We looked for eggs or cats beyond our own gardens and only released 65 Bflies. I say only..but we were pleased with that number! This year we will released approx. 150. We own 9 cages. We use containers for eggs and small cats then transferring to MWeed bouquets. We have found that duct tape works best on vases. It holds Mweed in place etc. This year Maria’s common Mweed was nasty after July. aphids…and ??? Don’t know what the problem was. Maybe watering from above? I have Swamp and common…common was not great in my garden either. I have found that the tiny plants were favarorite so with the later Monarchs for egg laying. ALso, a single Swamp Milkweed away from othe plants was a fav. For the last month I have had to search the neighborhood for another to feed hungry cats. No trouble until we went without rain for 10 days! Also rescued 4 large cats on their last leaves on a weedy neglected patch next to a commercial building. Moth caterpillars had eaten most of the lower leaves. I keep any larger cats found separate from the ones raised from eggs.
     More later about troubles…not bad.
     Last year a neighbor brought home a 3rd I star cat for a Mn state fair exhibit. It was on a dried up leaf..tiny container. Yikes. Makes me crazy…but it did form a chrysalis and eclose after fresh weed.
     So glad there is so much interest! Really enjoy this site and these comments. Thanks Tony.
     Waiting for temp to rise to release 2 that eclose yesterday. They had watermelon breakfast.

193. We raised 44 this year. 25 males and 19 females. The final one emerged and was released on 9/16/17. We also gave away many (over 40) to friends and family who successfully raised and released them. We’re in Minnesota-Twin Cities area.

194. For some unknown reason I had NO caterpillars this year. Not just at my home but at two other sites I maintain a few miles away. Two years ago I had about 80 to 100 and last year it started late but with mild fall had about 30. However my neighbor that I gave milkweed had a few and others in my garden group have had a good year. Just random bad luck for me this year?

195. I live in Southern California so I think we had an advantage because of the weather.
     This is my 4th year and the best so far. I released 55 healthy Monarchs (15 Males and 40 females).
     I tried not using cages this year but the flies, wasps, lizards and other enemies declared war and hardly
     any matured. After I started using cages again things improved.
     The new issue I noticed this year was the males were fighting once they were released. They seemed to hang
     around my garden and wait for more females to be released.
     MIlkweed is happy in my garden multiplying and reseeding itself year around, I am sharing plants with anyone who
     is interested in my area.
     Thank you for all you do. Clara Harris

196. It’s been a dismal summer for me in Huntington Beach, CA. I don’t know why because nothing is different from any of the previous years. But today (9.16.17) I saw 2 monarchs flying around seemingly mating. One landed on the milkweed, so fingers crossed that this will be fruitful and bring some migratory monarchs.

197. I released #107, 108, 109 and 110 this morning in south central Pennsylvania. I have approximately 80ish more chrysalis yet and 38 caterpillars.

198. We are in Blue Mounds, WI. 100%success rate. We released 7 Females and 11 Males. The last 3 were huge & fast flyers.

     The best lesson we learned is to check for eggs & cats about dusk and to do it daily.

     We cleaned out our cages, (large ones with the side open zipper door) every 2 days. We used large cuttings in bud vases with plastic wrap over the top & just punched a hole in it for the cuttings to fit through.

199. 2017 is my third year raising monarchs. In 2015, I released 22; in 2016, I released 42; and in 2017, I released 85 (all from eggs laid on my swamp and tropical milkweed plants). The first eggs were laid on 7/1/17, which is 5 weeks earlier than 2015 and 2016. This year, I had zero losses. — 100% success rate here in Grand Ledge, Michigan. (It’s a different story during the winter when I raised monarchs in Port Charlotte, Florida where OE is extremely common.)

     The 85 broke down to 44 males, and 41 females. But the strange thing is that on 9/9/17, my numbers were 32 females to 25 males. Then the next group that eclosed was 9 females and 19 males!

     Lessons I have learned: First, I had a MUCH better egg hatching percentage since I put the eggs and the leaves in a closed plastic container. I would open it a couple times a day to let in fresh air and to check for hatchlings, which were then moved to a different container with ventilation and fresh leaves. I used to use damp paper towels under the leaves, but that caused mold and fewer eggs to hatch.

     The second lesson I have learned is to leave then alone! The first couple years I was so curious and enthusiastic that I would be turning leaves over to check the caterpillars and I accidentally squished a few or would knock them off the leaves. Devastating to say the least.

     I NEVER pass up the opportunity to tell people about raising monarchs and the importance of growing milkweed. I have started conversations with people while waiting in line at the grocery store!!!

     Thanks, Tony, for all your help and advice. Love your containers and t-shirts.

200. This is my first year raising monarchs. I released 95 before my season ended on August 30 when I released number 95. If I had known the dangers of garden salamanders before they ate some of my caterpillars I would have achieved my goal of 100.
     Due to the salamander problem my son in law built an enclosure to keep out the salamanders, flies and wasps. I have empty enclosure syndrome as I miss the adorable instar 2’s and the fat fatties that chomped as fast as they could. It was a wonderful learning experience and I am looking forward to 2018.

201. We’re in Akron, Oh. First year raising monarchs. Have had milkweed growing for about 3 yrs , but I guess the monarchs didn’t find it until this year. We raised 13 from eggs. 100% success! We have two left that just formed their chrysalis’ today. I was very vigilant about cleaning frass and keeping fresh milkweed. I hope to expand next year as long as they come back to visit. I’m also planting more milkweed in other areas of the yard. Thank you for this website. It’s a huge help!

202. We live in Lafayette, IN & this was our first year for raising Monarchs. We found our first caterpillar on 8/24 & it was in a chrysalis on 8/26. I found 8 more of various sizes in the next couple of days. Although we experienced a few problems, including chrysalids getting detached etc. the information on your website was a big help. Thus, we were able to raise & release 6 females & 1 male between 9/5 & 9/12. One very small instar died.

     Thanks so much for all your information.

203. This year I raised 23 monarchs from a total of 28 wild found eggs from the garden that were located on swamp and common milkweed. This is stunning because the nectar bearing part of the garden didn’t go in until August 2nd, (National Night Out).

     I had five deaths, one egg dried up, one egg turned all black, one first instar, quit eating and starved, one fifth instar in J who suffered a prolapsed rectum, and one chrysalis that burst on a fall from its silk button. The survivors were hand reared inside using only milkweed from the garden and a nearby unsprayed park. We had a whopping 16 females to 7 males ratio. Learned a few things. Keep mobile growing/eating caterpillars away from those in J or already transformed into chrysalides. Caterpillars walking on those changing can kill by injury. Always wait for any different looking chrysalis that forms, even scarred or green ichor bled by puncture (which gets black scabbed) can still hatch out perfectly fine monarchs.

204. Common Milkweed garden for 12+ years. First year counting and bringing in to rear. This year, I could not understand why the caterpillars I saw would disappear next day. As a kid I was under the impression critters thought they were poisonous. I found out this year through this group that they would fall prey. We noticed a lot more monarchs this year than usual. We started looking for the eggs this year. We brought in what we thought were the eggs.
     August: 3 caterpillars and many eggs. 6 developed and released (all females). 2 caterpillars didn’t make it.
     Season progressed, brought in young common milkweed with monarch eggs.
     September 9/16: 3 males, 3 females released in September.
     29 crysallis remain to emerge.
     1 caterpillar about to change into a chrysalis.
     1 very young caterpillar noticed on the swamp milkweed today.
     In the past I have released Monarchs into October with no problems.
     This year I noticed after releasing a young male caterpillar another monarch came out of nowhere to confront. up into the sky they went. Luckily I keep them safe for a good 4 hours before releasing.

205. I’m 78 years of age and this is my first year of raising Monarchs, and what an absolute joy it has been. While working in the garden, I found a Monarch caterpillar on the milkweeds that I planted in spring of 2016, as I had read the these little beauties needed our help. I had a big clear glass flower vase with a perforated cap and found it ideal for raising them. I did a wee bit of reading about Monarchs, which helped me. I raised 2 females and 4 males, one from the caterpillar I found and the other 5 were from eggs I found on the underside of milkweed leaves. What a fantastic Summer I’ve had. My kid’s used to call me a nature nut, but they don’t realize the great satisfaction that their dad has had this year, raising these little beauties. Hoping for an early star next year…………..Robert

     1. Isn’t that awesome Robert! Its pure joy to watch these creatures successes!

206. I live in central Alabama. This is my first year involved with butterflies. The first butterflies we raised were black swallowtails. We found cats on some parseley and put them in a butterfly “cage”. We raised and released 10 out of ten. I hadn’t seen a monarch all spring and summer even though I had lots of butterfly and swamp milkweed. Last week the remnants of hurricane Erma passed over our area so I didn’t go to the farm for a couple of days. When I got there I noticed several plants looked eaten. I checked them and was shocked to see monarch cats. They were all over the place. I have moved about 30 into cages. They are forming crysalis everywhere. I’m so excited. The funny part is I have yet to see a monarch butterfly. They must move through here fast.

     1. I learned the cats will switch to a different milkweed. Most of the cats I found were on Swamp milkweed. That ran out quickly. Fortunately I had about 30 pots of butterfly weed. They weren’t real happy with the change, but when they got hungry enough they ate it.

207. Had an awesome year raising 108 Monarch butterflies this year. 85 released, 12 chrysalises and 6 still munching at this time in SW Ohio. Suffered 5 deaths from disease and/or predation including 2 that did not fully extend their poor wings. Keeping everything clean and fresh, and good air circulation seem to be a very big part in successful rearing. 3 cheers for MonarchButterflyGarden.net for all the wonderful information and encouragement.

208. I released 3 females and 1 male, raised from eggs. 0 deaths of any kind.
     I have a small garden in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

     1. I am in Orangeville Ontario, Canada. I successfully raised 6 monarchs …5 males and 1 female …for the first time ever. Raised them from caterpillar stage. 0 problems…
        Mostly happy to learn just how brilliant and amazingly strong they are. I was nervous to disturb or move them but examining the chrysalis after they eclosed I could see just how secure they are. Just thoroughly amazed. I shared the experiences with my young granddaughters. Looking forward to next season.

209. I released two females and one male today. Several more that are enclosed will be coming out within the next few days. Two probably tomorrow. So far all healthy butterflies. Cat’s were all healthy. No deaths with them. I am in Ohio. We are going through a beautiful dry , sunny warm spell. Raising these butterflies is a beautiful and humbling experience.

210. I live in Minnetonka, MN.. I’m not as experienced as most, but last year I found, raised, and released 6 from caterpillars. This year I found 4 caterpillars and 14 eggs. I brought all inside to my butterfly nursery. All survived, and the last was released this week. Thank you Tony, and everyone else for the information and expertise you have provided me. I’ve planted more Milkweed, and will plant more invitational flowers next year, and I’m looking forward to another exciting butterfly 2018 summer!

211. I raised 50 Monarch eggs. My first time to raise eggs. Thanks to Tony’s wealth of knowledge, I was successful and released 50 beautiful Monarchs!

212. 11 females and 4 males released so far in Reisterstown, MD. Have about 20 more cats waiting. 100% success so far using the cubes and flower picks I bought last fall.

     Main problem is with the aphids and beetles. They are destroying the milkweed. I have three different areas, spaced at least 75 feet apart and all are infested. Even trying to squash them every day but they are endless this year. Thanks for all your great help.

213. This was my first attempt to grow milkweed in my southern Delaware backyard. I had about 15 caterpillars that I could find. I found 4 chrysalis and brought them inside. I’ve seen 3 monarchs on my plants and flowers drying and then feeding on my flowers. Two chrysalis hatched successfully and were released. Have 2 left. No milkweed left or caterpillars. Not bad for first time Loved the experience.

214. I have a registered Monarch habitat and many milkweed plants (swamp, curassavica, tuberosa, syriaca and verticillata). This summer, the second in which I have closely observed the action, I saw that, despite many eggs being laid, and many 1st – 3rd instars being spotted, almost no caterpillars were surviving to chrysalis stage. (Last year I had found 6 pupae in the garden). A yellow jacket nest near the garden may have been to blame. So I got a mesh cage and began bringing them in to raise.
     So far 4 successful releases, 4 pupae hanging, and 5 more about to pupate. No deaths. They ignore my tuberosa cuttings completely and gobble up the curassavica. This interests me, as I have seen two gardens nearby that are heavily planted in tuberosa (No tropicals) that had many caterpillars on them. My theory is that in my garden, given that there are plenty of tropicals, the female chooses those for egglaying most of the time. And then the resultant caterpillars prefer to continue to eat what they first ate upon hatching. Can anyone confirm this observation?
     Another funny observation this year was, I had two ‘eggmates’ (hatched simultaneously on the same plant) who consistently chose to munch side by side, so much so I named them frick and frack. They continued to do everything together, so I was able to capture this great timelapse footage of them pupating in tandem, https://www.facebook.com/alice.ely.10/videos/pcb.10155901136261165/10155901136066165/?type=3&theater and then emerging together. Hope you can see these links.
     https://www.facebook.com/alice.ely.10/videos/pcb.10155934941896165/10155934941786165/?type=3&theater

     1. I saw on one of Tony’s posts that the one single asclepia that is not readily interchangeable is tuberosa. Apparently if they weren’t born on it or switched to it early enough, (before Instar 2) they’re like, “Ew! Blech! What’s this?!!!” Someone else posted higher up in their final report that their cats would end up eating tuberosa rather than starve but do so only reluctantly. In any case, Tony’s info proved to be true & very helpful to me and what a huge relief because I’d initially been told that after a certain age the caterpillars wouldn’t tolerate any switch at all but mine would always eat swamp and common milkweed with no hesitation and not touch the butterflyweed/tuberosa unless born on it, & even those born on tuberosa would prefer the swamp & common. I consistently found plenty of eggs on my swamp & common but only seldom on my butterflyweed. I have both swamp & butterfly weed on my patio and I’ve watched a female lay eggs on my 6 potted swamp MW first, one or two per plant and only after that did she lay a single egg on the butterflyweed, though there was plenty of it, & then she flew away. I have no experience with curasavicca, but read that it packs the most nutritional punch of all the available varieties.
        Thanks for posting!

     2. Links did not work for me… It said both times, “The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may be broken or expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.”

        1. Hello Tanya, thanks for corroborating my observations about the unpopularity of tuberosa amongst caterpillars whose mamas didn’t start them on it! Just saw that you couldn’t get to my links 🙁 I guess it’s because you aren’t on my FB friends list. so if you like send me a friend request, I’ll accept, and then you can go to my page and see my past butterfly posts. You should totally try the curassavica. I met a grad student who did a paper about the curassavica and the females’ preference for it. It has the highest concentration of toxic sap and she theorized that in times of milkweed scarcity, the females gravitate to it as it gives the cats the highest survival chance. Or maybe because it doesn’t senesce (stop blooming) like the native perennials do, so it has fresher leaves and blossoms later in the summer. Also it has the dual benefit of being less attractive to rabbits. the swampmilkweed have lower milkweed sap toxicity, I have read, and those get munched to a nub by rabbits unless I put an organic repellent around them. (what part of the country are you in?)

215. Hi, I live in Elk River Mn. I had a great year with monarchs. I probably raised from egg or instar1 about 25 cats. I did not lose any although I would say i had one or two that were not the strongest. I am in my 4th year raising butterflies seriously but have been doing this on and off for the past 18 years. I used to live in Sioux Falls SD and was very involved with grabbing monarchs and tagging them in the fall on their migratory journey. This was fun as my now 23 year old was about 8 at the time and it was fun for her and a great learning experience. I have a really hard time finding eggs and just randomly stop and check milkweed. ha. I am sure people sometimes wonder. I had my 5 year old grandson bring me an egg and i was so proud of him as he had learned how to find them. I looked all over. I DO have milkweed in my yard. I did find my first 5 or so cats on my milkweed and once found 5 on one plant. The rest i found elsewhere. My milkweed was not in good shape so a few weeks ago i planted some purple allium for next year. I had a bad case of aphids so am hoping this allium helps. I also plan to put in more plants and more milkweed around my yard. I would like to double or triple my fun next year. I did buy a big pop up for my cats but mostly raised them in a screened wooded framed cage i had my husband make a few years ago. Somehow they find their way to the top everytime. i raise them indoors. I currently have 1 chrysalis left. It will be emerging within the next few days. I have raised about 12 for this butterfly migration. I do believe that so far, all were girls accept maybe 2. When released they were all strong, flew straight up in the air and landed on a tree. From there i never saw them again. Thanks Tony for the fun. Sometime if you have time you should post pics of your flower gardens. Would love to see your set up and get some ideas.

216. I’m new at this. Last year started late for me. Some Plants had been sprayed. Lost several caterpillars. 1 healthy release. This year started in May. Relaeased 26 healthy lost several at the end of season from those terrible flies. No aphids in that season and very few flies until end of season. I bring them inside as soon as I see them but they hide and I’m not good at identifying eggs.
     I’m in southern CA so all I have is tropical milkweed. Both Home Depot and Lowes have been good about selling healthy unsprayed plants this year. My plants seem to thin out after purchasing them. I’m wondering if it’s because they are watered from the top by sprinklers. I have just put bark around the plants and I’m hoping it will help keep the plants from drying out after 1 day. I have been mostly successful feeding the mature cats zucchini. I cut in small pieces, make a small hole and thread onto milkweed stems and put in water. I use small ball canning jars filled with water (1/2 jelly jar size or about 4oz) attach ring and lid and make s hole in lid large enough to hold 1 or 2 milkweed stalks with leaves. These will stay fresh for several days. To clean cage I simply remove jar filled with cats and change paper towel. Feeding and cleaning 10-15 hungry cats is a full-time job. I love doing this.

217. First year of raising butterfly’s. But all 5 are now safely on their way here in Eastern Ontario

218. I released 16 Monarchs over the last two days. All appeared to be healthy and vibrant. Since June when I first started using two butterfly habitats I have released 24 Monarchs. In the first group one chrylasis did not egress completely, one turned black but did not egress at all and a third Monarch had a malformed wing so I put it in a baggy and put it in my freezer. The recent 16 caterpillars formed their chrysalises just before Hurricane Irma came ashore in Florida. Luckily I live in Central Florida and our damage was minimal, and the chrysalises stayed in our house until the storm passed. I did note there were many more females than males. This last group ate all the milkweed I had. It is growing back quickly but I need to find many more milkweed plants. As this is my first experience with these beautiful creatures, I am not sure what the season is here or if being in a warm climate means we have Monarch cats all year long.

219. I have released 10 this year with two still in chrysalis due to release next weekend. If all goes as planned I will have released 12 up 3 from last year when I released 9. I only have two swamp milkweed plants! I had no casualties this year. Only one did not make it out of it’s chrysalis last year! I think I am doing well for a little summertime hobby!

220. I live in East Bethel MN. My 4th year raising Monarch Caterpilars indoors. Outdoors didn’t work for me. To many predators. Each year I have more. I don’t start to see Monarchs here until about the week after the 4th of July. Saw more this year than in years past. Here are my results since then:
     -Total healthy releases 264
     -3 cats lost to tacinid fly eggs (gross).? I brought these cats in from the same location from a field in Andover MN.
     -6 instar2 deaths unknown
     -3 instar4 cats to OE or something
     -1 chrysalis fell, hatched and wings didn’t open
     -2 hatched and fell before wings opened
     -1 hatched but wings deformed
     -2 accidental deaths, wind blew containers off table before I released them.

     I have lots of milk weed as I live in a somewhat rural area. I had to search for eggs at first. After I found about 25 I would find more eggs and tiny cats each time I went out to get fresh milk weed.
     -I put eggs on the leaf they were laid on in a hatchery on a paper towel and spray each day. (Learned this from Tony)
     – I put about 6 cats the same size in a container to start. I continue to separate them as they grow.
     -I wash and store about 2 days worth of milk weed between paper towels in the fridge so I don’t have to go out everyday searching. I’ve gotten to know where to find the good stuff.
     I dump the frass and old leaves each day and put new leaves in.
     It takes time. My grandkids help and love releasing them.
     I’m working on a garden with more butterfly friendly plants.
     Thanks to all who mention where they are located.

221. Hi Tony,

     We live in Valrico, FL, southeast of Tampa and we got hit pretty hard with Hurricane Irma.

     I wanted to let you know that I counted 16 cats this morning, sure there are more I did not see.

     They are truly amazing!

     We released about 20 monarchs this season. We will we raising all winter as we did last year.

     We also released over 30 Black Swallow Tails this year.

     Richard Seedroff

222. We live in Chardon Ohio it has been a awesome experience raising our beautiful butterflies. We released 43 lost 3. Thank you for all your helpful advice. So happy we could help the monarchs.

223. I started with my first eggs 28 May in Lions Head,On.Ca. 45 parallel to date released 1013, fostered out 300 + and still have 50 chrysalis Been a year like no other with majority being females

224. This was our first summer dedicated to helping the monarch population in coastal Delaware revive. It has plummeted in recent years. We didn’t raise monarchs inside, but did everything we could to encourage their breeding and successful development on our property. I had read that some scientists feel monarchs raised indoors may be less well-equipped for the migration, but I’m sure that there are other opinions. We already had many plants attractive to monarchs for nectar, and greatly expanded our common milkweed, by letting it spread to new areas. When we saw them, we tried to move predators like mantises and wheel bugs as far from the milkweed as possible. Maybe that spared a few caterpillars. So far, we have had about two dozen monarchs emerge successfully and take to the sky, just in the small garden in front of our porch. There are eight developing chrysalises attached to parts of the porch. I just noticed two really large caterpillars climbing the walls of our house under the porch roof, so expect to see them forming J’s soon. One monarch emerged with somewhat undeveloped wings and died. Another had a slight flap folded at the tip of a wing, and it never managed to take flight. In the last couple of days we watched the emergence of three magnificent butterflies whose chrysalises were attached to the underside of leaves of a yucca plant. We still have quite a few feeding caterpillars. Recent torrential rains here have caused a lot of new milkweed shoots to sprout, fortunately. My only regret is that with a large property to maintain, I wasn’t able to regularly monitor the milkweed patches farther from the house and barn.

225. I just started raining monarchs I love watching them. I usually like to wait at least a week before their release I lost one she got out through a small hole and found her on the ground with no head ? But I saved her lil wings hopefully I can raise more next year if god permits.

226. We have a very small garden with only 5 milkweed plants. So far this year we have had 5 monarchs and there is evidence of a 6th but I never found it. It’s been our most successful year yet. Small compared to most but it’s exciting for us.

227. Released 30 monarchs from early August until now.. have 2 outside still in chrysalis. We are in Lisbon, N D. Most were from eggs gathered from the milkweed in my yard. Some were cats from eggs I missed. Had 2 unexplained cat deaths this year. Found your method of keeping the leaves with eggs in plastic containers until the cats were large enough to not escape very useful. Wrapped the stems in wet paper towels and then aluminum foil, seemed to keep them moist enough thru the hatching and first instar. Have enjoyed sharing the process with others. Last week there were lots of monarchs and painted ladies around feeding. I plan on planting allium bulbs near the milkweed to try and avoid the aphid/ant problems I had on some of my milkweed this year. Overall it was a good year and healthy monarchs. Have enjoed reading all the tips and hope to plant more butterfly attracting flowers for next fall.

228. This was my first time raising monarchs. 8 came from donated larvae, the rest were from our yard. I was given 8 larvae from a M. Naturalist that hatched them and a few from my yard. It was a wonderful successful experience for 12, but not for all that came from my yard. Which is chemical free…the last 3 larvae I brought in from all different parts of the yard that were in their last instar succumbed to the t. fly. I feel I don’ want to bring in any more larvae that appear to be in their last stage before metamorphosis. Sad to watch them die from the fly larvae eating them inside. Hopefully I can obtain newly hatched larvae again in the future and have better success from young larvae from our yard next year. Pam

229. I released 5 Monarchs in mid-summer, don’t have gender info handy but I noted on Facebook at the time. I had one caterpillar death – I think I bruised him when I didn’t see him hiding under a seam and I grasped the habitat to close it. I also had one die halfway through forming a chrysalis, cause unknown. Currently, I have 7 beautiful jade pendants hanging in my mesh pop-up habitat and two third instar cats but one is looking dark and sluggish. I was very upset to see a mosquito truck spraying across the street from me about three days ago and wonder if that was the problem. I contacted the company last year and told them to advise me any time ahead of time they spray in the neighborhood so I can bring my three pop-ups inside from the front porch (I have two with Swallowtails, most likely in diopause until spring, and one with Monarchs.

     Tomorrow I am volunteering at a Monarch Festival at Knoch Knolls Nature Center in Naperville, IL so hope to have a great turn-out!

230. I’m in Long Island, NY, (latitude 40) and I started collecting eggs around the first week of August. Since the peak migration date for my area is September 14
     (based on the monarchwatch website:
     https://monarchwatch.org/tagmig/peak.html) should I post results starting with eggs hatched starting August 14th?

231. I still have several tiny Caterpillars and 1 chrysalides. 2 died from a fallen chrysalis. 1 was eaten by ants before I could get him in the enclosure.

232. Well for a rookie at this its been fun and exciting to help with raising monarchs.I have successfully raised and released 8.They are still laying eggs and are still munching away.I have every intention of growing my butterfly garden on a larger scale for next season starting now.I have so many varieties of butterfly now i can’t wait until next season when i know more from this learning experience to expand and keep on raising.The beauty of butterflies is amazing.

233. I have been raising Monarchs since I was a little girl, over 60 years ago, and I am still learning some new tips every year. I released over 30 of these beauties this year. The last one should emerge this weekend, as I have noticed a slight color change. Over the years, I have engaged other people in this hobby, including the thrill of holding a new butterfly before it takes its first flight. I have enjoyed reading the Monarch Butterfly Garden this season, and am looking forward to its return next spring!

234. My first attempt was successful from a caterpillar on my garden milkweed. friends gave me three small cats purchased from a butterfly exhibit at the state fair. None survived though they had everything needed. Could they have shared a disease from the exhibit group?

235. I release number 156 yesterday and had two more hatch this morning. I’m in Texas so we have a few more weeks to go. The wasps have been voracious this year and I’ve lost about 30 or more large cats and countless hatchlings, plus one freshly hatched butterfly yesterday. It was a disturbing site to say the least. I have 18 chrysalis hanging and two on milkweed in the houseI have just a few eggs on milkweed outside which I will bring in. The males are going crazy mating with females, so I’ll have more eggs soon. I had hoped for a better year but hurricane Harvey had other ideas. For next year we are going to make a walk-in enclosure/greenhouse to raise the Monarchs and milkweed to avoid the natural predators that took hold this year.

236. I (with some help from our 12 year old daughter and an easy-going husband who never complained about the 5 butterfly cages in the house), have raised 38 monarch butterflies! Plus one more #39 is still in its chrysalis! We live in Chicago on a main street and yet I was still able to lure them in to our milkweed! There were four that didn’t make it: 1) One of my caterpillars tragically got caught in the zipper of the cage. It was quite horrifying! My husband had to destroy it for me as it was suffering. I plan on purchasing side zip or top flip cages instead. 2)Two more chrysalis friends never formed properly. Only part of the chrysalis was present in each case. 3)The other issue was one butterfly came out and its wings never enlarged. I purchased different milkweed seeds online so we will have even more plants for next year! I am thrilled to have 39 (almost 43) this year as last year I had only 8 butterflies! Thank you!

237. I was not having success raising in the house. They would start to pupate and die. I was ready to give up because I felt like a failure and was doing more harm than good. But, I tried an “experiment” by putting my next couple of young cats outside the patio door to see if they were successful to pupate and they were!! SO, I blamed it on my dog’s flea preventative. Something in our house was harming them. I know people say they have animals and haven’t any trouble. But, I really feel that’s what was harming them. Heavens knows it wasn’t cleaning products. 🙂 So, my husband made me a “monarch mansion” to raise them outside. I have a batch of 27 raised from an egg. Five have successfully eclosed as of the time of this writing. There are 22 more to eclose and I hope successfully. They will be tagged and released when it’s sunny – it’s a rainy today.

238. This was our best season ever; my grandkids and I got seven to adulthood (Know that isn’t a lot for most folks)and they were all healthy. We did have to put two in the freezer and destroy since they had been infected with the horrible fly (THANKS for posting the pictures because it helped us to identify what was wrong). This is such a neat project!

239. I just released two monarchs today – one female and one male (Danville PA) I have two in the latter stages of chrysalis and 5-6 caterpillars in my netting cage. Sadly, I had a late stage captive caterpillar die this morning. I also have between 5-10 caterpillars crawling around on my milkweed garden plants. It’s hard to keep up with them. I have wasps and bees flying around and I couldn’t rescue one early stage cat. from a wasp earlier today. I went to a hardware store for mosquito netting and they didn’t have any.

240. To make a long story short, I hatched 13 eggs, 12 healthy butterflies and one with wings that never quite unfolded. That one had dropped from it’s silk button and the cremaster had come off, so maybe that was nature’s way of knowing it wasn’t going to be viable. If it had fallen onto the natural ground, probably would have been eaten by garden life, and not hatched. I put that one in the garden, to live out its life there.

     Those caterpillars were a funny group. I kept finding them in the strangest places. Finally was able to close off their enclosure. 4 of the 13 hatched in places other than their enclosures.

     Can’t wait until next season! Will come back with “lessons learned” later . . .

241. 54 successful releases so far.
     About 12 crystalides and
     7 cats still munching .

     3 cat deaths
     1 Crystallia death
     0 butterfly deaths

     I bring cats in rather than eggs almost daily. I’ve had a few surprise cats hatch on milkweed that I brought in.

     I’m experimenting with most efficient way to keep milkweed fresh.

     I have common, swamp, butterfly weed and tropical. Favorites in my yard are tropical and swamp.

242. This is the first year I’ve ever reared monarchs. I have learned so much!! Last year I purchased a plant and only had one caterpillar that was killed by a spider. I purchased another plant and one of a different variety, made an actual butterfly garden and they came!! I would check the plants and often would only find yucky aphids. Then something compelled me to go after not checking for awhile and I found two juicy fat caterpillars! I collected them and watched them transform and decided to check for more. I ended up collecting 16 more! I just released my final and 18th butterfly today. I read every bit of information I could find and had a 100% success rate! I purchased my tags after I had the first two caterpillars so I ended up only tagging sixteen, and actually one fell off, so 15 of my butterflies have tags. I will be submitting my data sheet asap and I can only hope that one of them will make it to Mexico! This has been an inward emotional journey. Lots of patience, transformation, new beginnings and faith. Can’t wait until next year!

243. Hello Tony,

     Here in Moyock, North Carolina we have been working to attract more Monarch’s and have planted a few varieties of milkweed.

     Well it has really paid off! We had a number of Monarch caterpillars in the spring and now have quite a few more.

     Bought a cage and we are currently raising 7 more. 5 have already transitioned into chrysalides!!! We had a treat about an hour ago watching one transform!!!

     Thank you for all of the information you provide, as you are responsible for turning my brother & I into monarch loving nuts!!!

244. I have had a butterfly garden for a few years; it was mostly just for observation. This year I took a picture of a monarch caterpillar and posted it on Facebook and was sent a link to Missouri Monarch Lovers I then got interested in racing December the Catapillar’s I was able to collect 606 hatched out to wear my own for female labor relations over a period of two weeks next year I hope to have several more as web found a new purpose for my butterfly garden .

     1. It should have said God interested in raising the caterpillars too. God interested in raising the catsrpillos to full stage I raiseed 6 and released 6, Four were female and two males my garden has a new purpose . Can’t wait until next spring.

245. 6 Monarchs so far.

     Thank you for publishing so much valuable information. This is the first year any of the milkweed I planted came-up. I had trouble starting it and was amazed considering it is a weed. My buddleia davidii attracted all kinds of butterflies, as did various plantings throughout my yard, such as Mexican sage and lantana. I watched for Monarchs every day, but have only seen six so far. This is the active migration time in Texas. But, I post your information on facebook and have gotten some of my friends interested. A friend in Maine reported a lot of Monarchs on her milkweed earlier in the migration season.

246. Thanks for all of the great info. I raised my first batch of Monarchs from eggs I collected from Milkweed I knew would be mowed or cut with a weedwacker. I collected 26 eggs and rescued one large cat that fell from the eaves onto broiling concrete. I released 24 healthy Monarchs: 17 females and 7 males in Southeastern WI. That was fascinating and rewarding.

247. Since the end of August I have raised 80 monarchs, from eggs all the way released to butterflies. I had a couple chrysalist get destroyed by cannibal caterpillars and 1 butterfly with a crumpled wing but he was still able to fly!! I have about 30 something chrysalist left to hatch and 4 caterpillars still eating milkweed. Such an exciting and beautiful year of Monarchs for me and my kiddos!! We live in a suburb of Detroit Mi

248. This is our first attempt at keeping milkweeds in our yard. We have been doing well especially since we don’t have any experience! We had one butterfly so far and about 6-7 Chrysalis’s. There are many catapillars still munching away. It has been quite an interesting process watching them. We are in NE Pennsylvania and it’s been warm recently. The milkweeds are between our house and wooden fence so it is a somewhat protected area. Thanks for all the information.

249. As a librarian with Ramsey County Library I help raise monarchs in our libraries for all ages to witness the miracle that is the mighty monarch!

     Our last butterfly eclosed this morning so we are now finished for the season. We helped raise 87 monarchs from egg to butterfly. I personally experienced four caterpillar deaths (some explained, some a mystery). Others had a few deaths but probably no more than 4-5 so overall we had a great success rate.

     Our patrons are already anticipating next summer! We love the monarchs.

     1. I live in southern lower Michigan. I collected 221 caterpillars, many only a few millimeters long, on a number of milkweed plants scattered over 40 acres. Of the 221 caterpillars, 176 hatched. Of the 176 there were 10 with damaged wings. I let the damaged butterflies live in a separate cage with food until they expired. I then disposed of them in a safe manner to avoid contamination.

        Most of the caterpillars were found on small clumps of milkweed plants. I have 2 large stands of plants (approximately 25 plants in each), and found very few caterpillars on these. The random clumps of approximately 5-6 plants produced the most caterpillars. I also had a large invasion of aphids, ants, and earwigs on all the clumps of milkweed plants.

        This was the most productive year of the last 5. Looking forward to a better year in 2018. Thank you for the great information in your emails.

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