Monarch Questions

[Teresa]

1. When you find an egg on a milkweed leaf is it ok to pick it. Will the egg die if the leaf does? Right now I have them in water, i'm just worried about the leaf dying before the egg hatches.

2. If you find a cat on common milkweed is it ok to move it to butterfly weed. Does it make a difference?

3. Should you change the "containers/tents" that you rear them in or does disease carry over year to year?

[John Beaulieu]

Brenda and I have been picking the leaves that we find eggs on, keeping the stem in water. They have remained fresh enough untill the egg hatches, at which time we have been moving the tiny caterpillar to a fresh cut stem or a potted plant. We cut a small square of the old leaf around the caterpillar and place this on a leaf of the new fresh stem. When a stem is getting too dry we will remove a leaf with the caterpillar on it and place it on a fresh plant, to avoid hurting the caterpillar by picking it up. Although, I often pick up full size caterpillars (carefully) when they start wandering off the plants looking for sites to J-hook.

Although they will feed on most of the milkweed species, I have been told that they do prefer the tender leaved varieties such as the tropical or Mexican milkweed. I understand that the orange Butterfly-weed (A. tuberosa) has a slightly tougher leaf than the common milkweed. Around here there is a reddish stemmed variety of the common milkweed which appears to have less tender leaves and we have never found caterpillars on it. Butterflies feed on both varieties but they seem to only lay their eggs on the green stemmed plants.[/img]

[Keith Petrosky]

I picked a leaf with an egg in it and it hatched fine, just make sure you put the newly hatched caterpillar on a fresh leaf so it wont starve.

I have also moved a caterpillar from common milkweed to butterfly weed, it actually liked the butterfly weed better!

Dont know much about disease, sorry.

[Teresa]

Right now I have about 30 cats in captivity. My plants also have alot of them. Would it be better to leave them alone on the plants? Should I move my bigger cats outside to the plants? My thought was that if I brought them in they would be protected and i'd release alot more than if they were out there for preditors.

Another thing I was wondering is if I bring a leaf in to feed the cats and it has an egg on it will they eat the egg also? Will this ruin the egg? Everytime I go get leaves for them I find another egg. This is going to be my biggest year yet. I've seen lots of females laying eggs. They say a female lays approx 1 or 2 eggs per plant. What if the other female doesn't know there's already eggs there? I can't believe how many I have.

[MILW]

Yes, I've seen older cats eat an egg that was on their leaf. I just cut out the eggs with about 1" sq of leaf, and keep them on moist paper towel in a covered plastic container. The piece is usually enough food to get them to 2nd instar, then I start adding larger pieces of leaf as they grow.
cheers- Scott

[Pat]

For smaller leaves, I just collect the whole leaf with the egg and then put a bunch of them together in a plastic dollar-store shoebox lined with a damp paper towel. For the big broad leaved plants, I cut a piece with the egg out, but these seem to dry out faster and so I put those pieces on top of a whole leaf. I don't bring them indoors unless it's pouring rain and there's a chance their box lids will leak at the airholes. I keep the boxes outside, but out of the direct sun. With the air conditioning on it's 15 degrees colder indoors, and I think they do better at the outdoor temperatures.

My cats switch leaf species all the time, they're not very fussy. Whatever gets put in the box is pretty well accepted, but if I had to pick a "favorite" I guess I would say the tropicals.

[Teresa]

It seems like all my bigger cats are going into J formation at once. It looks like a parade up the side of the cage I'm glad because i've started to have to go out and find more milkweed leaves for them.

[Teresa]

I killed one I thought one was caught against the screen and i went to pull him/her off and it was in the end stages of sheding it's skin. It's laying in a ball and i'm sure it's dead. Breaks my heart!!!! I have 13 in crysilis form and about 20 more to go. I also have some other eggs. I hope the rest of this goes better

[Teresa]

When is the worst time to disturb cats/crysillis? I try not to open the cage while they are close to pulpating, they curl up and seem disturbed. I have others to feed and i'm afraid of disturbing them. Should I wait?

[MILW]

I think the curling up is a defensive posture; if you really bother them they'll spit up some green stomach contents (yuch!). The only times I'm careful not to bother them is when they have slipped their headcapsules just before each larval molt, and when they're J'd. The chrysalis can be handled gently, and anytime they're crawling around I don't worry about picking them up (or using a paintbrush for the 1st-2nd instars)
cheers- Scott

[Pat]

I have about 50 in chrysalis, 120 cats of various sizes and a few dozen fresh eggs. 8 of them emerged this morning. I wonder if the annoying heat and humidity that is making this an unpleasant summer for us humans is a delight for the lady monarchs, because they've been all over the place, leaving eggs even on weeds coming up in the lawn that never get over about 4" high before they're mowed down.

The caterpillars can tolerate quite a lot of handling if you're patient. I take them all out of their boxes every morning to change their paper towels, get rid of all the frass, and pile in fresh leaves. The only time I don't disturb them is if some J'd ones are ready to pupate, you can tell how close they are because their antennae shrivel up.

[Teresa]

If the tagging kits aren't going to be mailed out till the end of the month then i'm going to have butterflys before that. Does that mean these will go out and reproduce and not migrate?

[Pat]

Actually I asked the vendor about the tagging kit shipments; they said the kits ordered before 8/1 were already shipped last week. I ordered mine back in May but I haven't seen 'em yet. 7 days for USPS seems a pretty long time for 1st class mail... guess I'll just keep checking the mailbox. I'm sure getting impatient though!

[Teresa]

I got home from work yesterday and mine came. I'm still leary about tagging them in the middle of august though. What do you all think? I'm in central Ohio.

[Teresa]

The top of my cage is covered with about 25 crysilis' (sp) There are several pretty close together. Do you think that will hinder their emergence?

[Pat]

They should be fine. They probably won't emerge at exactly the same time anyway, and you can just move the first one out over to something else: a plant, a cotton swab, just about anything they can hook their feet in will do ... mine are fond of hanging from the macrame planters to dry their wings, they don't slip on the twine and they'll stay there for hours.

Thanks for the update on the tags, if yours got there yesterday, mine should be here today, I hope!

[Teresa]

So far they are doing great I'm coming home to 3 or 4 on the average everyday. I need more cages. hehe

[Teresa]

Does anyone know if you can "sex" cats? They all look the same to me unless it's size.

[Teresa]

Never mind, I found the answer in another post

T

[Teresa]

Does anyone know why my smaller cats would just die? I'm finding them dead and they are always about an inch long.

[Teresa]

When monarch first emerge why do they turn themselves back and forth?

[Teresa]

I have a cat that I thought was dead. I left it on a leaf but then I seen it move. I put it by itself on a leaf and it crawled off of it. This has been going on for about 4 days and it's still alive. Looks like a 4th 5th instar. It's not eating, just laying there for the most part. Any ideas?

[butterflylover]

Hi Theresa,
you have a lot of really good questions, I would love to answer all of them but I would be writting a book here. As far as I can see it could be the cooler weather slowing down the process, all of mine seem to be slowing down and I have 50 some cats left still eating out of 375 that I have found total. All the rest have left me as butterflies or are still chrysalides. They will shed thier skins every time that they get too big for them. This can be up to a two day process. I usually don't touch them when they are doing this, I just put a fresh leaf in there container and let them move to it on their own. As far as the eggs you can pick the whole leaf or just as others do, just cut around it and just watch it closely. I pick the whole leaf and when the egg turns black on top it means it will be hatching soon. I put in a new leaf close to it and let it go to it by itself. They will feed on their own egg shell first. I could keep going but I will save some for another day. Any questions you might have you can e-mail me personally. I have had years of experience with this. It is my favorite hobby . Debbie Moore (Butterflylover)

[Stripe]

I saw the question about "sexing" caterpillars, but how do I find the previous post that answers the question, or can someone explain the answer here? Also does the sex of the caterpillar dictate the sex of the butterfly? Or does it have anything to do with temperature while in chrysalis form (like temps of eggs impacting reptile gender)? I have had so many more females than males this summer.

[Teresa]

I too have had alot more females. The past years i'd get excited if I got a female, they were always males. Not this year, at least for me.

[Teresa]

Thanks Debbie, What is your email address? Where is Garretsville?