| Raising Monarchs, 2019 | March 1, 2020 |
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Note: New pages in this series are listed at the bottom.
For me, 2019 was the year of the monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterfly, because in the late summer, Sue and I took in twenty monarch caterpillars and released eighteen wonderful butterflies, including the female below. |
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The Reason Why
In the previous year, 2018, for the first time in the backyard, monarchs laid eggs on the milkweed. Eventually, four caterpillars developed and went walk-about to seek places to make a cocoon. We lost sight of two, but two successfully made a cocoon on the fence. The first of the two was attacked on the day after and drained; the second wasn't viable. In brief, Sue and I had no luck whatsoever in 2018. We decided that if monarchs should again lay eggs on milkweed here, we'd do better for the butterflies. The warning: July 21, 2019, was the warning to get ready. I had taken a casual photo of a female monarch, and Sue pointed out (something one can barely see) a tiny, tiny caterpillar on a leaf (seen beneath the monarch's wings). |
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| We started to prepare, and ultimately (during a peak time) we had many monarch caterpillars indoors in a safe mesh cage where they could eat without the danger of predators. |
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My intention is to have a series of pages on what we found out while being exceedingly new at the task of monarch raising (along with forthcoming links for supplies). In brief, this page is a starting point; more will follow.
Raising Monarchs
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