Raising monarch butterflies

Butterfly release

Since my eldest was in preschool, we’ve always tried to raise a group of butterflies each year. The first time we ever experience it was in the spring of 2014. I took photos almost every school day, and created a video to share with the teachers.

I’ve lapsed over the past few years, much to the dismay of my kids. But this summer, I’m especially inspired thanks to my Girl Scout troop.

Fast forward to now

One of the Brownie scout patches is about bugs. And we’re lucky to have a mom who’s recently gotten her garden certified as an official butterfly habitat. So she invites the girls over for a pool party and teaches us about her garden, the native Florida plants, and some herbs she’s growing. She also shows us a patch of milkweed that is specifically to encourage monarch butterflies to thrive in the garden.

Not only did we get to see monarch caterpillars munching on the milkweed (a key plant in their survival), but we also got to see a couple of eggs and some dried chrysalis nearby. I’m probably the only one in the group that squealed in delight.

Let’s get some milkweed!

So the next day, I go to Home Depot with the kids. My son loves animals, so he was really excited to come along. He’s also the main player who’s been on me for not buying caterpillars for two years in a row. So there’s that.

We find the milkweed and I make the kids find the plants that have caterpillars. It was not difficult at all, and we were soon the proud owners of two plants with 2 large caterpillars, 2 medium caterpillars, and at least 1 baby caterpillar. We think we may have found eggs, but even with a magnifying glass we weren’t sure. My son has been bragging about what a good father he’s going to be with these guys.

The plants are on our condo patio. We check on the caterpillars every day, and they seem to double in size each morning. The plants are barely recognizable as the caterpillars have completely shorn off the top leaves. I found a monarch life cycle chart at the Dollar Tree, and the kids use it every day to document the growth cycle. I’m on the Google making sure we don’t accidentally kill anything.

So far, so good

On Day 2, the two eldest — Flower Petal and George — tried to make a run for it. I found one on the side of the pot, and the other was on the floor heading towards the neighboring rosemary. My hunch said they were ready to morph, so we put them in the old butterfly habitat.

Within 24 hours, they morphed from caterpillars to pupas and we got to see the last stage of one turning into a chrysalis. I didn’t realize it could take an hour to go from J-shape caterpillar to full-on pupa mode.

The grossest part? They shed their skin, and now there’s two small black piles on the floor of the habitat. I don’t dare go in to clean it up for fear of disturbing the pupa.

The other two — Teeny and Tiny Jr. — are getting as big as their brothers. They’ll soon turn to pupa. We found two babies in the dirt. But they refuse to leave it. And the tiny little guy? We think the big boys ate him. Can’t find him anywhere.

Moving on

Meanwhile, we’ll continue to chronicle their journey. We just love raising butterflies. I highly recommend this activity for anyone. We usually buy kits from Insect Lore, which are painted lady butterflies. It’s such a cool thing to experience, and teaches the kids about life cycle and how endangered monarchs in particular need to be saved.

Just wish we had a yard. I’d work towards that special nature certification. Meanwhile, we’ll make do with our tiny butterfly habitat and continue to enjoy these special little creatures.