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Depending on where you live, you can raise Monarchs whenever milkweed is growing in your area.
I live in the Midwest, so for us this is June through August.
Milkweed is the
host plant
for Monarch butterflies. That means it is the only food that the Monarch caterpillar will eat.
In my opinion, Monarchs are THE most interesting butterfly.
WHY??
- Large and beautiful butterfly
- Common throughout North America
- Fascinating in all butterfly stages
- Raising & care of the Monarch butterfly is easy
These instructions are divided by butterfly stages - egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and, of course, butterfly .
Tips for care of Monarch butterfly in each stage and photographs of the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly are included.
Here we go.....
Monarch Egg
It starts with milkweed. Plant some in your
butterfly garden
.If you are impatient, you should be able to find some common milkweed along the roadside or in a wild, weedy area.
You might see a Monarch butterfly flying near the milkweed and touching down briefly on a leaf. Inspect the underside of the leaf and you should see a tiny Monarch egg.
Once you know what the eggs look like, it won’t be long before you become a pro at finding them.
Remove the leaf from the plant. You can place the leaf in a plastic sandwich container.
Put a wet paper towel inside the container and then put the leaf on top of the paper towel, egg side up.
I have also cut the stem of the milkweed and placed it in a narrow-necked vase of water.
It takes about 3-5 days for the egg to become a caterpillar.The first clue of this change is when the top of the egg turns black (caterpillar head). This picture (Right) shows an egg on left leaf with black head and newly hatched caterpillar on the right leaf. Now, we move on to the second stage of the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly – the caterpillar.
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