Raising Your Own Butterflies

Female Monarch butterflies migrate incredible distances, laying eggs along the way. Because milkweed leaves are the only food that their young eat, this is the place to look for eggs. Usually only one egg is deposited under a leaf, and each is as small as a pinhead, so a magnifying glass is essential for finding them. Magnified eggs are greenish white, cone-shaped and ribbed. Once you've found one, cut the leaf surrounding it (at least one inch) and bring it indoors.

This leaf should be kept fresh on a moist paper towel (without chemical additives) on a plate or tinfoil tray. Within four days (typically) after the egg was laid, the baby caterpillar will begin eating its way out. The "eggshell" provides it with its first meal. Then it moves on to nibbling small holes in the leaf. Keep it supplied with fresh milkweed leaves over the next few days, as it will devote all its time to eating and sleeping - doubling its size in the process. After about a week in the tray or plate, the caterpillar will be big enough for a rearing cage where it can move about.

A jumbo-sized glass jar provides suitable housing. Containers can also be created with screening held in a cylindrical shape by jar lids and taped, or a half-gallon milk carton covered (to preserve moisture) in plastic. A small jar of water should be placed inside and tightly covered with a plastic bag so the caterpillar doesn't fall in and drown. Poke a stem of milkweed leaves through the bag. Habitats like these can support up to three growing caterpillars.

Milkweed leaves should be changed every day. Caterpillars at this stage are hoarding nourishment for their pupal stage when they won't eat at all. Their droppings - which resemble peppercorns - can be cleaned up when their leaves are changed. When they begin molting - shedding their skin - a twig should be placed in the container, filling all the available space.

Full-grown caterpillars are typically about two inches long. Having attained this size, they begin searching for a place to transform into pupal form. A caterpillar in captivity will attach itself to the top of the provided twig with a line of silk spun from its mouth. Slwoly, it loosens its grip on the twig until it's hanging freely. After a day and a night of this, it's ready for its final molt. Caterpillars emerge from this last shedding looking like little green blobs. Their new skin quickly grows harder and smooth. Towards the end of its development, you will be able to see the growing butterfly beneath the transparent membrane. A caterpillar's chrysalis will typically hang for nine to fifteen days.

Then comes the dramatic moment when the butterfly stirs and the shell begins to crack at the seams. Finally it tumbles out in a kind of gymnastic flip, still clinging to the now-empty chrysalis shell. A butterfly's wings expand to full size within eight minutes, but they have to dry before it can fly.

At this point, having witnessed its miraculous transformation, we should release our butterfly into the outdoors so it can search for food and begin to play its part in perpetuating this beautiful cycle.

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Comments ;-)Good information - brief but informative. This time I had 44 caterpillars. They stripped all the leaves from the milkweed and some have developed it's chrysalis, but some are alive and looking for more leaves to eat and grow. Do I just have to let them die - or is there something I can feed them? Help! #0 - anywho - 09/09/2007 - 08:24 Name Title Comment To prevent automated Bots form spamming, please enter the text you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.