Green stains, dropping C's

[skates4marty]

More unusual occurrences this year:

1) Bright green stains on the walls of the cages, the paper on the floors, etc. Four people in our group have noticed this. We do not see each other, although we all live within 10 minutes. We get our milkweed from different places. I know spitting up green is a sign of pesticides, but the caterpillars aren't dying. It's not blood, because it doesn't turn black. One person has a theory that the cats "pee" a little when disturbed. .. ??

2) Chysalides popping off their silk pads. It's getting so that I'm afraid to touch the cages.

The only thing I am doing differently this year (my sixth) is refrigerating the leaves.

Anyone else having green stains and C's dropping to the floor?

[Mona Miller]

They will spit up when stressed or alarmed.

Maybe something is weakening their silk making and they aren't making a strong pad or maybe they are weakened and aren't holding on. I have only had one that fell off its silk pad this year.

[applestar]

Are you and your friends spraying/misting water into the cages? Are the cages outside and getting dew? the liquid green on the floor and sides maybe dissolved cat poo. And we spray/wet the silk holding the chrysalis to remove them.

If this is a problem in the chrysalis/silk themselves, I wonder if it is in anyway related to the splitting chrysalis posted earlier.

[skates4marty]

I know what you mean about dissolved cat poo, but it isn't that. Some of these stains are halfway up the walls. One friend described her cages as looking tie-dyed.

[Mona Miller]

Some thing is causing this. It can be caused by a stressed caterpillars. It could be air conditioning or too much heat. It could be pesticides. How loud is the noise in your houses? Loud noises disturb caterpillars.

Plenty of people use frontline on their pets and then work with their caterpillars.

On the other hand, I did have someone say that they had some green discharge from milkweed this year.

The question should be is how is it affecting the caterpillars.

[Wyvern]

You are putting the leaves in the fridge.. nothing wrong with that... HOWEVER... when you take them out of the fridge, you need to first let them warm up to room temperature and use a paper towel to dry and wipe the condensation off of the leaves. Cats given cold wet leaves do have a tendency to get sick and puke green.

Another thing... are you washing the leaves thoroughly before you put them in the fridge? and how are you storing them in the fridge?

If you are NOT cleaning your leaves, then you can have bacteria spread as green puking can be an early sign of illness.

I always clean and rinse the leaves and then lay them out onto pieces of paper towel... you make stacks... layer of leaves spaced out.. paper towel on top, next layer of leaves, etc.. and them slide the whole bundle into a large ziplock bag and squeeze the air out and zip close. The water from the leaves will make the towels wet, but that's good.. helps keep the leaves nicely hydrated.

If you are using bleach for cleaning your leaves then remember that when you take them out of the fridge to give them one more thorough rinsing under water and again dry completely before feeding to the cats...just in case there is any residue. Some residue left on the leaves when stored in the fridge is NOT harmful.. actually helps keep bacteria/virus problems down better than just cleaning with water alone. it's when you take them out you need to make sure its all off before you feed.. too much residue can make cats get upset tummies.

[skates4marty]

I'm not bleaching the leaves -- washing well mostly to get the aphids off. Have not been drying before giving them to the cats. Figured the condensation would take the place of misting. There seem to be two camps in raising B-flies -- the "keep stuff dry," and the "mist once a day" camps. Which camp one supports might depend on whether cats are outside in the humidity, or inside in the air conditioning...?

But the others who are seeing these green stains are not refrigerating their leaves. One is putting stalks in vases (and a 4-hole toothbrush holder) , like she always has. It's puzzling.

[Mona Miller]

I recommend drying the leaves. If the leaves are fresh enough, they have plenty of moisture in them. I used to mist the paper towel for older caterpillars, but I stopped doing that several years ago. Too much humidity can cause diseases.

But, I do put the eggs on the deli lid and do mist the paper towel under the deli lid. I think the leaves with eggs last longer, if you do that..

[Wyvern]

I'm not bleaching the leaves -- washing well mostly to get the aphids off. Have not been drying before giving them to the cats. Figured the condensation would take the place of misting. There seem to be two camps in raising B-flies -- the "keep stuff dry," and the "mist once a day" camps. Which camp one supports might depend on whether cats are outside in the humidity, or inside in the air conditioning...?

But the others who are seeing these green stains are not refrigerating their leaves. One is putting stalks in vases (and a 4-hole toothbrush holder) , like she always has. It's puzzling.

Even in Air condition settings, wet leaves can be bad especially with low air flow in the rearing containers designed to help hold humidity.... condensation/wetness on leaves in general is bad in an indoor setting. Outdoor setting with big open air caging is different. I raise my cats in my office at work.. it's air conditioned and I do not wet leaves or mist at all. I line the containers with paper towels to soak up as much moisture from the frass as possible.

As for the friend who is not refrigerating and feeding fresh.. could be bacteria or virus.

I had a batch of milkweed in my yard that I had been using with no problems (just rinsing leaves, no bleaching) for a few weeks then suddenly one day all the cats I was feeding those leaves to started getting sick. Soon found cutworm moth cats living around the milkweed plants outside also affected (and dying)....apparently got hit with the caterpillar melt virus. What startled me most was I even found ladybugs affected. seeing 2 melted ladybug adults was almost heartbreaking.

Switched to a different location for milkweed for a few days and the cats that were still alive recovered for the most part.. enough to pupate... lost 5 chrysalis though (the virus made the chrys. melt), but the others survived. Unfortunately, that patch didn't last long for the high numbers I was raising so I had to move on to yet another patch.

That patch actually scared me... all this beautiful milkweed... plenty of signs of dozens and dozens of monarch cats having been around... but not a single cat to be found. this was a nice patch of mostly soft new plants too that aphids just adore... but hardly no aphids to be seen. The leaves of almost every single plant showed signs of the melt virus (black liquid splashes on leaves everywhere). I was desperate for milkweed so I harvested 4 days worth of leaves from the patch anyway. took the leaves and soaked them in tub of bleach water (stronger than I felt safe using..about 1/3 cup to 3 gallons of water) for 10-15 min...stirring them up frequently. I then used a good sponge soaked in the bleach water and began wiping each leaf down (on both sides) several times in the tub of bleach water getting most of the black splashes cleaned off and what not. After each leaf was thoroughly soaked and wiped clean in bleach water I threw it into a tub of clean water (no bleach) to soak.... over and over until all leaves were bleached and cleaned. I soaked the clean leaves in the 2nd tub and stirred them up frequently for about 10-15 min. I laid the leaves out wet onto paper towels and layered them until all leaves were done. Then stuck the whole stack into a 2 gallon zip lock bag and put in the fridge. Opening the bag up the next day you could smell the bleach residue (smelled like a swimming pool lol)... so that was good...hoped the residue took care of any possible left over virus hiding on the leaves. I took enough leaves for the day out and then rinsed again in cold water and wiped down several times with a sponge to get all the residue off. Then dried them all and fed to the cats. No problems..cats didn't get sick.. Every day.. pull some leaves from the bag and rinse with water and wipe down and dry and feed to the cats... every day.. no sick cats. Most of the cats that were feeding on the leaves from that scary patch have gone into chrysalis and the chrysalis are good.. none have gone black....so the disinfection of the leaves from that contaminated patch was apparently a success. the strong bleach solution was enough to kill the virus so now I won't feel bad about having to use leaves from my home patch later if I have to with this newest wave of cats I am raising.

[skates4marty]

How loud is the noise in your houses? Loud noises disturb caterpillars. Plenty of people use frontline on their pets and then work with their caterpillars.

Three of the people are retirees. (i.e. no rock bands practicing in the living room) Two do not have animals. One has a dog part-time. I've told her about flea/tick treatments before. We dog-sat for a week. I told the owner not to treat for flea/ticks before the dog came. These are the same conditions as in years past. And the caterpillars are not dying. They appear to be fine.

One is using a lot of her A. tuberosa plus some common MW. I collect from my A tube and then switch them to common MW, again as I have always done.

It's weird.