Our first Monarch Butterfly Chrysalis

[RobAmy]

Well Amy and I tried our hand at raising a Monarch Caterpillar. It just turned yesterday into a chrysalis. Hopefully we will get a butterfly. It has a swamp milkweed in it. It is in the house now due to the poor weather. I will put it outside when the weather is better. It is always a good feel helping out nature.

Here is the cage

Here is the Chrysalis

 

[mrsclem]

Congratis on trying to raise monarchs. I brought in 60 cats and ended up with 50 chrysalis. Unfortunately, a lot of mine were infected with some type of disease but was fortunate enough to hatch my 1st butterfly today. I still have over 2 dozen chrysalis that appear to be viable so hoping to release more monarchs. I also have 3 black swallowtail chrysalis. I just hope they don't decide to wait till spring to hatch

 

[RobAmy]

@mrsclem It seems disease is a big problem with the Monarch. Hopefully our one will survive. A applaud your efforts.

 

[Nevermore44]

Nice! my brother got me into raising monarchs. (He will release almost 200 this year!) My son and I will do around 75. It's fun to watch them grow and eat. If you can find an isolated patch of milkweed ... and you have monarchs in the neighborhood... you can get tons and tons of eggs off that small patch since they don't have many plants to pic from to lay their eggs.

I've had 5 so far that were infected with the tachinid fly larvae. It's gross to see them bust out of the chrysalises.

 

[RobAmy]

Nice! my brother got me into raising monarchs. (He will release almost 200 this year!) My son and I will do around 75. It's fun to watch them grow and eat. If you can find an isolated patch of milkweed ... and you have monarchs in the neighborhood... you can get tons and tons of eggs off that small patch since they don't have many plants to pic from to lay their eggs.

I've had 5 so far that were infected with the tachinid fly larvae. It's gross to see them bust out of the chrysalises.

Very nice. 200 Butterflies, sweet. I can only imagine how much milkweed one needs. It is a bunch for sure.

 

[Nevermore44]

Yeah.. he lives next to a decent sized "park/nature center" that he volunteers at. They have some hay fields which have tons of milkweed in them.... which they don't want in their hay. So he has an unlimited stash of food... and eggs.

Even for my small group... when you have 20 large cats going at one time I would have to bring home a large milkweed stem every single day or they would go hungry crunching on the stems. If you can find the common type of milkweed... it makes things easier since they have the large leaves.

The closes bin (like you have) would sound like rice crispys with all of the chomping going on.

 

[Gordo33]

t's fun to watch them grow and eat. If you can find an isolated patch of milkweed ... and you have monarchs in the neighborhood... you can get tons and tons of eggs off that small patch since they don't have many plants to pic from to lay their eggs.

Last month I counted 20 monarch caterpillars at one point. Then the numbers slowly declined to zero over a two week period. There was still 30 % of the plants left so I'm not sure why they left . I never thought to take them in and create a cage. Will try that next year.

 

[Gemma]

Well Amy and I tried our hand at raising a Monarch Caterpillar. It just turned yesterday into a chrysalis. Hopefully we will get a butterfly. It has a swamp milkweed in it. It is in the house now due to the poor weather. I will put it outside when the weather is better. It is always a good feel helping out nature.

Here is the cage
View attachment 115682

Here is the Chrysalis
View attachment 115683

I hope you get a beautiful butterfly!
How long before the transformation's complete, and what do you do then? Do you keep it indoor for some time or release it right away?

 

[RobAmy]

I hope you get a beautiful butterfly!
How long before the transformation's complete, and what do you do then? Do you keep it indoor for some time or release it right away?

I believe it is 10-14 days for the cycle to complete. I believe they can be released fairly quickly you just have to allow for the wings to dry before release. This is my first time so I could be wrong.

 

[RobAmy]

Last month I counted 20 monarch caterpillars at one point. Then the numbers slowly declined to zero over a two week period. There was still 30 % of the plants left so I'm not sure why they left . I never thought to take them in and create a cage. Will try that next year.

That is why I tried it, they have a very low survival rate from caterpillar, something around 2-4%. We had to nice sized caterpillars on the milkweed and next day they where gone, possibly birds ate them but I am not sure. This was the last on we had so we are going to give it a fighting chance.

 

[mrsclem]

10-14 days in chrysalis form and once it hatches 3-4 hours. I released 5 yesterday. I picked some flowers andlet the butterflies have a snack until the passing rain was over.

 

[RobAmy]

A little update, we are getting close

 

[mrsclem]

Should be today!

 

[RobAmy]

Success I just put some fresh flowers in the cage, weather is horrible outside right now.

 

[mrsclem]

Looks like a female. Good job!