The spring of 2016 has been notorious because of the absence of Monarch butterflies, but about April 10th a few females must have had the same idea and decided to have an egg-laying party at the home of Barbara Fleischman. She has a large Mexican Milkweed shrub and they laid so many eggs on it that it was covered with caterpillars. Barbara was worried that there would not be enough food for them, so she sent an SOS through Jan Miller for help.
I responded and called Barbara and told her that we could help. Frank and I went to her home and collected 36 beautiful caterpillars on April 16th. There were still some left on her milkweed that were left on their own to grow and take care of themselves and later pupate.
The ones I took were raised in two clear plastic shoe boxes topped with netting. They were fed leaves from our Milkweed vines three times a day. They grew very fast, were healthy, and started to pupate about a week later.
Three of them died in their attempt to pupate, but the rest pupated successfully and made gorgeous chrysalises. Two of the chrysalises turned very dark black and never did come out, so we assume they died in their attempt to eclose. All the other 31 eclosed just fine and were beautiful butterflies.
The chrysalises were shown at the Fielder House Plant Festival, where everyone marveled at their beauty. Some people had never seen a Monarch chrysalis and they were amazed at the miracles of nature.
The butterflies were released in our home garden and the Fielder House Butterfly Garden, where they went off happily to drink nectar and propagate. Hopefully we have helped them increase their numbers by raising them away from the dangers of predators at their most vulnerable stage.
Josephine Keeney
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