Butterflies not clinging?

[SammyG]

I'm sorry if this has already been covered- but I tried to do a search and did not find many results.

Does it often happen that a monarch emerges and then does not (can not?) cling to anything? Mine are in a mesh cage, and I had a totally successful brood of 5 about a month ago. Now I have 6, and 3 emerged this morning. 2 of those 3 simply would not climb or cling or latch on to anything I offered sticks, flowers, dried flowers, my finger....

Finally, I offered a fuzzy wool sock... and the butterflies were able to grab and hang onto that! So I put it on a coat hanger (the kind with 2 clips at either end, with the sock stretched out) and hung it up with the butterflies on it. One was able to get her wings to fully unfold successfully, the other, not quite so much

Anyway, just a suggestion in case anyone else has this problem- something I found useful.

Does anyone know why this sometimes happens, and any other suggestions for when it does?

[Mona Miller]

Did you disinfect the container you are using before you used it again? I highly recommend this between broods to clean containers. Your Monarchs could be diseased. Perhaps OE. That weakens them. They could have gotten it from the container or they could have gotten it from their mother. That may account for them not being able to hold on to any thing. All that being said, what type of container are you using. I high recommend a net container because it is so much easier to hold on to for at least the adult stage.

[SammyG]

I did disinfect, with a mild bleach solution (I'm not a fan of bleach- can I use vinegar instead? THat's probably a whole different topic).

Maybe this doesn't always apply, but I thought Oe chrysalises showed brown spotting? I kept checking these for that, and never saw anything unusual. But perhaps it was that, and passed on from Mom...

Edit- just realized I didn't answer about the type of container. It's a screened cage, which may not but quite as easy as a netting mesh cage, but like I said- my first brood did fine, which made me think the screen was ok for climbing and clinging. The first brood was clinging and climbing all over the place!

[Mona Miller]

You can test them to make sure. OE is not always visible.

http://www.monarchparasites.org/
Click on testing. You will need clear tape, microscope. Radio Shack has a small one that works for under $20.

Did you rinse the cage thoroughly? I think Blazing Star uses vinegar, too. But, I really don't know if that kills OE.

[SammyG]

I didn't use vinegar this time, since I had a little bit of bleach on hand- but when I'm out of bleach, I was wondering if I could use vinegar. I rinsed it after using bleach.

Thanks, I had read a little about testing for Oe and wondered how good of a microscope was needed... I've got one somewhere from a science kit I got for Christmas probably 20 years ago, but the microscope seemed to work well enough.