2 butterflies hatched today 12/09 1:30pm

[familyfriendlyschool]

Wed. Dec. 9, 2009 - New Jersey - USA

Two out of 6 of our butterflies have hatched today! - 2 within 30 minutes of each other - one is large and strong and the other is smaller and for a moment caught it's wings in some "nectar" (gatorade - we need to re-read protocols regarding nectar!) One newly hatched butterfly fell on the floor of it's habitat - I nudged it with an eyedropper and it climbed aboard and I got it to cling to the roof of the habitat it seems to be doing okay. They both spent some time pumping their wings - we took video and still photos - it was SO exciting!

both of these butterflies are in our primary home-made PLAN B habitat - there is one pupa on the floor of this habitat...it looks like it may yet hatch?

Our secondary habitat (takeout food-container) has 2 more pupa - one on the floor, one died one is on the wall of the container. They look like they are developmentally behind the others...the caterpillars were smaller in this container too.

We bought a pet-store plastic terrarium today - we will re-read the protocols and may transfer attempt to transfer our butterflies to it to live out their lovely lives. At the moment we are waiting and watching...wondering if daylight/darkness has any effect on the hatching process - our set up is in a darker dining room with lamp set up so they're in the dark at night...will this delay/stop any of the process.

p.s we loved the reading about another Monarch groups postings and questions about "waste in space"!

This has been really fun for our home-schooled family - we've been honored to partcipate!

[TNTMonarch]

Congratulations!

Our first two emerged yesterday, Dec. 10th. First a female, then a male. Our male fell on to the bottom of his habitat. I used the dowel rod to get him out and he seems to be just fine now. We used the opportunity to look at him under a magnifying light that we have. It was very interesting.

We have moved them into our butterfly house (round net cage) with our maim painted lady who emerged in October and wasn't able to fly off with the rest of his(her?) family.