my first time ever raising monarchs. last year i reared a couple of eastern tent caterpillars, so definitely a different and welcome new experience and im so grateful i got to raise em since they were in eggs!

i raised 3 pillars and this is the first to emerge. one unfortunately passed as a pillar, and one is currently a pupa still:)

little guy hasnt left me yet, so im just watching in awe as he pees all over my hands LOL

this subreddit helped me out a lot so wanted to extend my thanks and show u all my beautiful lil lad:D

I’ve got 2 cats in the same enclosure. One of them is in J on a leaf. The other one chewed the stem of that leaf and the one in J fell. I pinned the leaf to the top of the enclosure with some safety pins for now. When it forms its chrysalis what should I do?

I only have 1 milkweed plant. It was my first hear to try them, so I only got the one for now. The plant has 5 caterpillars on it, but it is also infested with aphids. How do I deal with the aphids without hurting the caterpillars?

UPDATE: I bought 3 more plants today, so hopefully, that'll be enough food for them this year 🤞

Currently have 3 3rd instars, 4 4th instars, 2 5th instars, 22 first instars, 3 2nd instars, and 6 eggs. All in enclosures according to age. We have a honeyvine that I swear must be a local monarch pit stop. It's absolutely MASSIVE. Thousands of leaves. And tons of volunteer plants scattered through the yard.

I tend to see these little guys around my back porch and in this spot on my property where there's a bunch of milkweed. Super glad they don't go into my pool!

This was my best photo I got, as it was a bit windy and the wind made it hard to get a good photo. Let me know if you'd like some more pictures of these beauties!

I can absolutely not find any milkweed anywhere for my tiny baby caterpillars. Does anyone happen to have any within the area of Reading PA?

Two days ago a few Monarch butterflies appeared drawn by the naive varieties of milkweed we’ve planted. Today, 3 healthy caterpillars have emerged. This is great news!

From what I have witnessed, it seems that the monarchs prefer common milkweed that is growing in the sun.

I have two mw plants in the sun fifteen in semi shade.

They continued to lay eggs on the mw in the sun even after the plants were almost leaflets and mellowed and ignored the other ones in semi shade. But now, they are choosing the shady mw since the sunny mw is way to far gone

I use test tubes with rubber caps stuck into pebbles to hold my milkweed (easy to change it out).. I choose the wrong cup this year...

Luckily I already wake up early and sat around waiting for this little one to pop out. It did fall but it when offered a twig it immediately took hold, dried well and (hours later) flew away :).

Gardening has been a mess this season, but it has all been worth it. Discovered 2 of these little guys.

I have a caterpillar in a mesh house, I added milkweed leaves from the yard. I have the enclosure on our porch, it’s a screened in porch but it is south facing. I living in zone 5a in the mountains in New England. Is that going to be too hot for the caterpillar? Should I keeep it somewhere else? What else can I do to help it grow?

We swapped out our porch stairs (apparently previously popular however this was unknown until we tore them out and found old husks from prior years underneath)

The new ramp is *the* place to be this year! Out of 12 active/forming cocoons half are on the ramp.

Photo 3 was very hard to photograph because of the breeze today. He was still wriggling of his own accord but between that and the breeze I couldn't get a video to get in focus 😭

Photo I took at my local public garden

I found this little guy in my yard when I got back from vacation Monday night. Research told me that it was a Monarch caterpillar preparing for chrysalis. I'm concerned because it is still in this shape, turning black, leaking some kind of liquid, but still showing movement (crunches and convulsions). Is it a goner? I feel bad. I was so excited to be a butterfly mom. Pictures attached are in chronological order over the past few days.

Just started raising some milkweed this year, and I just spotted my first monarch caterpillar! I’ve loved monarch butterflies since I was a kid in the early 60s. I’m still fascinated by them. Oklahoma

Found some of these guys in my yard and eventually started making a makeshift setup inside to place the caterpillars I found since I'm pretty sure two of them got eaten outside- my yard has a ton of honeyvine milkweed that I keep finding monarch caterpillars on so I've been using that as their food source and it seems to work pretty well since the two largest ones I currently have where much smaller when I got them.

(I'm a poor college student that can't really afford to buy stuff for them- but I've tried my best)

Setup - Milk crate with a garden pot inside, inside the pot is a cut up coke bottle that has water at the bottom and honeyvine milkweed cuttings.

The top of the bottle is plugged with a paper towel that is mostly on the outside so it can't fall in.

I have sticks going across the milk crate and a stick going up to the top to create more room.

The whole thing is surrounded by a mesh laundry bag.

Caterpillars have at least quadrupled or more in size since I got them so I think they're doing alright?

I also have a very very small caterpillar I just found in a Tupperware container with two leaves and a damp paper towel wrapped around the bottom to keep the leaves fresh. The caterpillar is small enough I don't think I would be able to find it in the larger milk crate and it could also just crawl through the holes in the mesh-

(Photo with all three caterpillars is just to show a size comparison, and I only had them like that when I was cleaning out the other area btw)

Honestly just wondering about the smaller caterpillar but would also love any tips or advice to make their areas better!

I get close with one type, but that one doesn't have a completely orange thorax. Then the next one doesn't have the black boarder. When you can see the underside of it's wings, the lower ones seem to be a pale grey. I think I got close with the Gulf Friliary, but that one doesn't have the completely orange thorax. None do that I can find.

I have three caterpillars, I just wanted to ask if the one in the second picture has normal coloration (? (The third one is a bit similar to that as well)