Monarch Butterfly Farming

October 6th, 2011

The last two years we have picked up a butterfly rearing kit from the local butterfly conservatory.  The activity is popular amongst local homeschoolers and classroom teachers.

Last year, all but one of our caterpillars died.  The one that did survive fell as he came out of the chrysalis and had a crumpled wing since we were not home when this all happened.  Fuss was devestated.

This year, we were pleased when we picked up our kit to find that they had provided us with four chrysalys in addition to the caterpillars.  We were not the only ones who had a poor outcome last season.   Here is our milkweed plant when we first brought it home.

We (read: I) had to pin the four chrysalis onto the top of the cage.  I’m not a bug person, so this was a huge leap for me.

Fuss was so pleased when the first butterfly came out and was perfectly healthy and ready to go.

What was really nice was this one spent probably about 45 minutes hanging out on fuss’s hand.

He finally decided it needed a bit of a push to leave the nest, so he put it on one of the flowers in our butterfly garden.

You can see a tag on this one.  The kits we pick up are part of Monarch Watch which is dedicated to the study of migratory Monarchs (early season Monarchs are non-migratory, late season are migratory).  We tag them right before they are released.  It’s actually not overly easy to do, so one didn’t get a tag since it was a bit too active.  Hopefully this one gets to enjoy it’s journey!

We still have two chrysalis left and they are looking pretty healthy so fingers crossed they do just as well.

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