My friend asked if we wanted to raise Monarch butterflies. We have raised Painted Ladies (the ones that come in the mail) We loved them so we said "yes". Little did I know at the time how addicted we (ok, I) would get.
We met with a lady who has has a Monarch Conservation and releases around 1,200 a season. She showed us the different sizes of "larva" (caterpillars) she had. She sent us home with 8 of them.
We went to the museum of Science to see the IMAX movie "The flight of the butterflies" with our friends. If you want to learn about the migration of Momarchs, look up this movie! It was really good. Jen and I even got a little teary. It's about the man who researched their migration. It was really neat to see how it all started. Then to see the guy find out they all fly to the same place (Mexico). Tear jerker.
Our 8 caterpillars were getting hungry. We were down to one car at the time. So I asked Aaron to stop and get them some milkweed. Monarch larva only eat poisonous milkweed. And.... you have to go hunting .... in the woods for it. My husband the good sport he is went into the woods in the dark and brought home enough milkweed to feed 200 caterpillars
Oh yes, that is the entire milkweed plant above. Pulled out from the ground. We replanted it in our garden and hopefully it comes back to life next year. Before you give the leaves to the caterpillars you have to wash them. We looked carefully for eggs on the backside of the leaf. We found 3!
Ailyn was super excited to use her "eye glass" to watch the eggs grow. We started a journal to record our eggs all the way through to the butterfly stage.
Below is the teeny tiny caterpilliar coming out of the egg. One of our eggs didn't make it. We were told that might not have eaten the shell of the egg and did not have the nutrients to live.
We did lots of fun lessons on Monarchs. And, even learned a very catchy Monarch butterfly song that you will get stuck in your head for hours.
They grew fast! At first you could barely see them. Then in a couple days they have their green stripes.
It wasn't all fun. We did learn a few ways that they don't make it. This guy was one of the 8 given to us. Tachnid Flies can lay eggs on the caterpilliar. They don't kill them until they are about to pupate. When it hangs in the J shape the fly larvae will come out of the caterpilliar. Below is the fly larve.
Our little nuggets were growing and growing. When a caterpilliar becomes too big for its skin, it sheds its skin. Creepiest thing I have ever watched!!! But, very cool. It can shed up to 5 times!
And, our little guy has had enough milkweed leaves and is crawling to the top of the cage. It makes a silk like mat and then attaches itself to the mat. It drops down into a J shape for about one full day.
Ailyn and I were lucky to watch one caterpilliar turn into the Pupa. It was really neat! It sheds its skin one last time and turns into a chrysalis.
It stays there for 9-14 days. Our guy came out on the 10th day. It's pretty amazing to think what is happening in that chrysalis!
How freaken cool is that?! You can see the butterfly!
And, she's out! Ailyn watched her come out. She kept saying how small she was. But, it was just because she was wet and needed to dry.
Our other nugget was a boy. Males have two dots on their wings. As Jen would call them "balls".They take 4 hours to dry. We tagged them and sat with them on the porch. Ailyn likes to talk to them. Most of the ones we have released fly away with in a few seconds but our one nugget we raised from an egg hung out for 5 minutes! It was cool to see him up close.
I was too lazy to do Ailyn's hair or clean her nails or dress her out of her pj's..... but now I regret it.
And, just like that he flew away. On his way to Mexico. (I like to ignore the fact that 1% of the Monarchs actually make it there)
If you are local and interested in raising Monarchs next year you can check out
Maryland Monarch Conservation and if you speak to Pam tell her Ailyn and Amy sent you! 