How the method of how to raise Monarchs has changed this year – according to one little study. What you need to change and what you can do the same.
My very first Monarch of the season emerged today with another 2 that won’t be far behind. Plus another 8 eggs are lined up and ready to hatch.
Because ’tis the season – Monarch season, not Christmas, although that’s going to be here before you can say, Dear Santa, I’m a size 6 Chanel – I thought I should update you on some Monarch news you’ve probably read about in the past month. That’s presuming you read about Monarch stuff. If you do not, allow me to direct you to this post about the perils of a Brazilian Wax and its effects on farting.
Is anyone left here?
As you probably know, I’ve been raising Monarchs for over a decade. (This is how I do it and how you can do it too.) Every summer I go out into my yard in search of Milkweed with Monarch butterfly eggs on it. I pluck those leaves off and bring them inside where they can hatch in peace in a glass jar with a ventilated lid and CNN droning on in the background. From thereon in I spend the next couple of weeks feeding them new milkweed leaves and cleaning their glass house.
When I first started looking into raising my own Monarchs years ago, there was almost no information to be found online about it. So I researched what I could and developed my own method. I always knew it was a bit weird to have them in the house where the conditions were so different from outdoors, but it seemed like the easiest and safest way to keep them.
Still. Every year I’d think, there has to be a better, more natural way to raise Monarchs. Maybe a big birdhouse? Or a box outside?
For everyone saying, just leave the eggs alone outside on the milkweed, this is where I tell you that only a tiny percentage of eggs laid on milkweed ever make it to the butterfly stage. The eggs or day-old caterpillars are eaten by bugs and birds.
I never came up with a better idea so I just kept doing it the same way. Then this study came out last month proclaiming that Monarchs raised indoors basically lose their GPS instincts. Not a terrible thing for early and mid-season Monarchs, but for the late-season Monarchs – the ones that migrate to Mexico and continue the survival of the species – it could be a death sentence.
The study was small though and only involved commercially produced Monarchs from one breeder. There is in fact proof through Monarch Watch that many commercially raised and indoor-raised butterflies have made it to Mexico where they have a grand old time frolicking in cilantro while listening to telenovelas drone on in the background.
Even if the study is a bit sparse, I still think raising Monarchs outside is the way to go if you can do it. Therefore this weekend I’ll finally be building an outdoor Monarch cage to hang on the side of my house. The upper section will be for the older caterpillars and chrysalises to hang, with the lower section for smaller cats and eggs.
Also, just to keep things real … Dear Santa, I’m a size 6 Old Navy.
Have a good weekend!
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Woah woah woah…. Hang on – Raising monarchs is a thing? Look, I know I’m a little late to the party here, but this is incredible! How have I missed this? I thought I had a wonderful free range childhood in the 70s and yet clearly, I was deprived. I won’t make the same mistake with my child. He’s gonna have a Magical Monarch Moment if I have to eat my way through a dozen Marie Callender’s frozen pies to do it. A mother’s love knows no bounds! Well, ok, maybe my waistline does… exactly how may pie tins are we talking here for this monarch house? Just a top and bottom? Your basic double wide? Nothing fancy? Although I do see they have Cherry, French Apple and Key Lime on sale…. decisions, decisions… I suppose one shouldn’t be too stingy when saving the planet. Ooooh look! They have pecan! Are monarchs considered endangered?
Ok…..I have tried to grow milkweed in my garden, in the lawn, in sunny corners that I don’t mow down. In pots. I fail. Common milkweed is what monarchs like where I live but what does this plant need to be happy? I am lost on the soil, the sun, the water. It grows behind Walmart next to a highway with no help from anyone. What does this plant want? Any advice is welcome.
I love all this information. I went egg hunting today. We have lots of land and I’ve see a lot of butterflies around here (Kentucky). I do see monarchs, too. I started with four jars (3 eggs and one caterpillar). I am keeping them out on my screened in porch. If I have any kind of success, I’m sure I will be building some sort of butterfly house next year. I have to find a way to keep our guy that hays our property from mowing all the milkweed down (he will definitely think I’m crazy) 😉! I think I want to go look for more eggs tomorrow. Only issue is the area where the milkweed is growing abundantly is almost 4′ tall with mixed weeds!
Karen- My photo of the caterpillar isn’t very good but can you tell if it is a monarch? It doesn’t look exactly like the ones in your photos. Thanks! So glad I found you!
So we finally have successful milkweed in our yard and the butterflies are everywhere yay! But the aphids are _everywhere_. The tops of my plants are basically yellow.
I’ve been spraying them with soapy water but I’m not sure that does anything. Do you have that problem and how do you deal with it if you do?
I have a 3′ garden running the length of our garage. I’ve been counting Monarch caterpillars all summer. One day, there were 47. Yesterday, there were 9 large ones on a two foot tall milkweed. Apparently, they get along well. We have had over 30 chrysalises emerge, so far and more are on the way. I can’t get the house stained until they are done.
Nice! I actually saw my first live caterpillar on milkweed around my yard just a few days ago. In the 20 years I’ve lived here I’ve never seen it. They always get eaten. I’ve also seem WAY more eggs on milkweed than ever before and my yard is loaded with monarchs. It’s so much fun! ~ karen
I raise swallowtails & monarchs from eggs on my dill (growing in driveway cracks) and 4 milkweeds. Over 30 swallowtails this season so far and at least that many monarchs in the making. Started in mason jars andnow have 3 pop up habitats bought online. Used some grocery dill which didn’t work so well – lost about 3 little guys. Otherwise, pretty darn successful. I always put some sticks in to make it more homey- gives them extra space to hang on to. It is fun for sure!
“to make it more homey”, lol!! Very nice of you to help them with their decorating. :) Good job on the numbers! ~ karen
Can’t wait to see the butterfly house you build.
OMG
I am a newbie to Stuff. Didn’t realize it would take so long- 2 cups of iced coffee- to read it all and find out about penisii new cuss words and fluffy chicken butts. Mercy me. Love it all.
But, the memory you gave me was back in the day (when screening was made with metal), we made monarch cages with a tin pie plate on the top and bottom and the screen rolled and connected with a few sticks inside. Bet you can’t come up with anything much better today – if you can find metal screens.
I’ve been raising monarchs for nearly a decade, including one year in the high school I teach as school-wide project where students tagged and released the migrating brood. Needless to say I have gone through a lot of cage permutations! Although I do love my favorite homemade cube cage, my current go to’s are the big popup laundry hampers! I like to bring in the full milkweed plant because I find it has a longer rate of staying fresh, and I put the stems in wine bottle (less tippy). The upside down hampers fit perfectly over them and the mesh allows the caterpillars and newly hatched butterflies lots of grab-on surfaces.
Additional note: I too became aware of the migration study last year and looked into it. In fact, I had a friend who called the authors of the research paper and told him that the headlines it produced were never their intent. With their small sample size and the fact that most of the insects in their study had genetics from long time captive stock, i still feel confident that I am doing more good than harm raising them in my front hall or dinng room table :)😀 Full disclosure: now that I am sadly without my kitty, my last 6 I just let “free range” without the cage at all. Especially in the time of covid, a butterfly emerging certainly adds brightness to the day :)
So happy I read this post (I read them all) and clicked on Brazilian wax for a hilarious read. One of your best. Don’t ever stop.
This probably explains why we have a couple small monarchs dancing around the milkweed for the last two days!
My understanding of the study is that all of these monarchs were raised from eggs purchased from a commercial breeder. Not gathered from outside the house where they were raised. That they are disoriented makes sense to me because the eggs are probably from monarchs that have been in captivity for multiple generations in another part of the country.
I am hoping that this study does not stop people from gathering eggs and raising monarchs, even if they do it indoors, because the ones that they release will lay many, many eggs and some of them will survive out in the wild, emerge as monarchs and hopefully have a successful migration.
You can get tags for your migrating monarchs and you have a chance of learning whether or not they made it to Mexico.
I am on my second year of raising monarchs! I have two catepillars right now, and planted 6 milkweed plants in my garden- hopefully they’ll spread and I’ll have more! Thanks for enspiring me!
I have been raising Swallowtails for several years now. The first year I brought them all inside, but found dealing with all the poop to be far too much work. The following year I built a small cage (4’x2’x2′) out of cedar 2×2’s and stapled window screen to it. Every Spring, I plant several pots of fennel, dill and parsley and leave them out in the open until I notice some eggs on them, then put the pots in the cage. That way I can swap out the pots to attract new eggs as the cats hatch/munch/go into chrysalis. I leave some twigs and branches stuck in the pots, too, so when the butterflies eclose, they have a place to hang out until I can release them.
Its been several years since I even saw a Monarch down here in north Florida (named due to all the flowers a long time ago). I just know that the stupid mosquito spray has a lot to do with it. The county sprays during the night with tons of poison fog so everything dies. We moved to town and picked our neighborhood one acre lot when we saw the fantastic firefly light show in the evening but that was 12 years ago and slowly that show has dimmed to a brief, sparse pen light non-event. I had ten acres in the country before, no sprayer, and not nearly as many mosquitoes as now with the &*&^$%&* sprayer! Sorry for the rant but most butterflies including monarchs don’t stand a chance here anymore. I do get to pay money and take the grandkids to a butterfly museum nearby. Really sick!
Where in north Florida?? Tallahassee here! I planted milkweed this year and see butterflies. Maybe try that to attract them.
Good morning, Karen. I have a question unrelated to this article but to your article in the recent Lee Valley Gardening Newsletter. You mention Serenade® Garden Disease Control for blight. I assume it’s this: https://hydroponics.com/shop/natria-natural-disease-control/? I have to switch to blight-resistant tomato seeds for a few years now, but I’m hoping for something to control blight so I can plant heirloom tomato seeds again. Thanks.
Hi Jane! Yes, that’s the newly branded version. Same thing. It worked GREAT during my trial run on seedlings early this summer. I think for it to be completely effective on a large tomato using it partly as a preventative would be a good idea. ~ karen!
I’m in Connecticut and I have propagated Milkweed in my yard for a few years now after reading your original post about raising Monarchs. I have a lot of Milkweed now but not a lot of Monarchs. I saw ONE so far this year. I checked all over for eggs with no luck. I did raise two Swallow Tails from Caterpillars found on my Dill. We raised them outside in a screen covered terrarium. Worked good but need something to keep the rain out. I’ll keep trying. Thanks for the info.
Just keep waiting Ruthann. They’ll find the milkweed eventually. :) It could take a year or two. ~ karen!
Keep up the faith! I had a healthy crop of milkweed for a few years before I found my first caterpillars (on the rogue milkweed I had pulled up from the middle of the lawn)! I now love plenty of monarchs and eggs every year. Check every day for the eggs. I also have a ferocious community of ants in my yard who check on the eggs even more regular than me and would gladly snatch up a day old caterpillar.
Once you start finding them I bet you will find more and more. You can also check the monarch watch website or subscribe to their updates and find out when the first sightings are in your area.
All that being said there are natural changes in the cycle each year that are weather dependent and have nothing to do with your own location. Im 2019 there were monarchs everywhere -I had never seen so many! But a year or 2 before that I literally had zero :( for the first time in a decade. Spring rain or drought (and timing) in the South can have a big impact on how many get to the North.
Keep the faith!
Thanks for the reply. I did release 3 monarchs this year and I am thrilled!
I have raised Monarchs in one of those mesh “tents” they sell at the dollar stores to put over your food at picnics. It’s easy for the caterpillars to climb, and easy to put newspaper under to clean up all the caterpillar droppings! They stay on my porch till ready to fly, then the mesh tents fold up like umbrellas for next year. In my classroom, some did escape and made chrysalis on my classroom ceiling. Ummmmm….principal not happy about the stains, but the kids loved watching them hatch up there! Great lessons.
Awesome
I bet those kids won’t forget that!! What did you do with the leaves (when under the tent) so that they didn’t dry up while the caterpillars were eating it??
Hi Karen, I though you should know there is something wrong with your link to the article on your email. It redirects me to a page that says someone is impersonating you and if I continue my data would be compromised.
I got to the article by going through the my browser and typing in your name.
By the way, my farm is full of monarchs this year. They are on their 2nd or 3rd generation this summer. They are more plentiful this year! Interesting fact, they love animal poop and dead frogs in the road! 😳
Um, that’s weird. And by “that” I mean everything in your comment from the email to the dead frogs, lol! I’ll look into the email thing, that’s very strange. I’d like to know if that’s happened to anyone else. My emails are sent out through Mailchimp and I’m not sure that they would be compromised or if it would be more likely that it’s a virus on your computer (that redirects). I’ll check into it and thanks for letting me know. ~ karen!
Both the links in my email work fine (i.e. “continue reading” and “Read the Full Article”. I’m using a gmail account with Thunderbird.
Karen, you’re terrific. I read your posts religiously, and I agree with TucsonPatty’s comment about your readers, who are often almost as funny and informative as you are.
I just tried both links on my iPhone and they were accurate and connected quickly!
Lyn
Morning, Karen. Thanks for the update info on Monarchs. I have several milkweeds growing next to the sidewalk in my front yard (most sun, other Asclepias out back in a mostly shady yard). Monarchs have frequently been visiting, but we’ve been away for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, I checked to see if any eggs had been deposited, only to find that someone had absconded with seven leaves from the largest milkweed. I hope the culprit is nurturing the eggs, but had they asked I would have given them some. May you have a bumper crop- both Monarchs and veggies.
Karen, it took me forever to read this post, because I had to go back and read the pee-pee post, and all it’s comments, and then read the Brazilian wax and fart post and all it’s comments.i’ve read The frozen yogurt tampon post several times already so I could skip over that link tonight.
You are one heck of a writer, Karen, and your readers must also always, always read the comments, folks. You have some awesome subscribers and commenters, Karen!
I love it when I can snort while I am laughing and the tears are running down my leg.
Don’t ever change!
:) ~ karen!
Are you sure those are tears?? 😏
We put the “fun” in dysfunction!
(Sob) Hubby accidentally mosed down my milkweeds out back. They are coming back, and he is now looking out for them, but so far no eggs. On a happier note, the Swallowtails I found in my dill late last August hadn’t eclosed from their chrysalis by late October. I overwintered them in my garage and brought them out once temps hit close to 70°F. Late April we released them. If you love something, set it free…
Hi Karen,
So…exactly how do you raise them indoors? You must be telling us but by brain. obviously not operating in all Monarch cylinders doesn’t seem to get it…Really want to do this!! Thanks,
Sandy
Hi Sandy! Thanks for reminding me to include a link to my posts on how to raise Monarchs. I’ve updated my post. Here’s the link to the first in a series of how to raise them at home yourself. https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/raise-a-monarch-2/ ~ karen!