10.17.10 Chrysalis update

Today I have 23 Monarch Chrysalis….1 Queen Chrysalis, 1 caterpillar  in the “J” formation, 1 small Monarch caterpillar (about 1”) on one plant in the “house” and 2 Queen caterpillars (1/4”) on another plant.

Outside I have 3 Queen Caterpillars on a Giant Milkweed. This plant is about 5 1/2  ft tall with very unusual flowers. I thought it was beautiful and never asked  if it was a native milkweed….it’s not.   I had it in the ground but repotted it and will keep it in the screen room over the winter. That is a Queen caterpillar in the photo below near the bottom of the leaf….and a couple of the spots where it has eaten. They are very thick fleshy leaves. I had a Monarch caterpillar on this plant and it grew eating on only 1 leaf…then I put it in the Butterfly House.

2 of the caterpillars made their chrysalis on the underside of leaves in the “house”.

This chrysalis is dated 10.05.10 and is already darkening…look closely…you can see the outline of the wings. This was taken at 1330, 10.17.10

I am expecting it to emerge sometime tomorrow.

Nature’s Little Pruners

These plants were new yesterday!   And they are already chewing on the stalks. There are 13 in the picture…and one ladybug to control the aphids.

There are 6 Chrysalis in the top and at least 4 in the “J” position and several up there making the web to hold their feet. You can see one that is just starting to pupate.

This is the view at the other end of the house after I added 2 new plants.

Jim took one look at the denuded foliage this morning and said “we need more plants”  so off to the nursery we went.  I picked up 10 small ones and the 2 large ones that I’ve just put in. I’ll keep the 10 little ones to add as needed.

These caterpillars should all be in a Chrysalis in a day or two…by then the 8 eggs I saw on the plants outside will be ready to come in …and we can start all over again.

Monarch caterpillars are growing.

We were gone for the weekend…I had the Butterfly House all set up with 5 potted plants for the little guys…

My first look at them on Sunday afternoon was a bit of a shock…I thought the plants were withering up and dying…

Then I looked closer….almost all of the top leaves have been eaten.  In this photo you can see several large ones. I would expect them to pupate in the next day or two….

I now have 3 chrysalis in the top. One pupated while we were gone and this one early this morning. Here it has just rid itself of it’s skin.

You can see the difference between them. The one on the R is only minutes old…within an hour it looked just like the one on the L. Until that time, I would see movement every few minutes.

Here is a picture with at least 13 of the 27 that I now have.

I removed 2 of the stripped plants( you can see one on the L (above) that is just stalks) and this is 2 others.

I waited until all the caterpillars moved from the plant on the R to the one on the L , (all the big leaves are there) and then replaced it with a new plant. It wasn’t long before several of them had moved to the new plant.

The 2 plants were planted in the backyard where I am trying to establish a big patch of milkweed for the butterflies.

I had another bonus…can you see anything different in the photo below?

Look closely at the one on the R near the top…..That is a Queen Butterfly caterpillar…notice the extra feelers on its back?…and it has yellow dots instead of yellow stripes….it was on one of the plants I bought today…It just keeps getting better and better.

How did I end up with a Butterfly House?

Chris posted a comment asking if I was raising them……it didn’t start out that way. I had a small container with a couple of leaves with eggs….I wanted to hatch them and photograph the whole process from start to finish.

I needed to do some research on how to keep the eggs etc.  While doing that I found out that ants and other predators will sometimes eat the eggs (big red ants were running up and down my plants)…so I gathered a few more.  Now I had 2 containers..once they started hatching it was a job keeping fresh clean leaves in it so I moved everything to a large container.  Because the leaves were cut when I placed them in it..they wilted before they could be completely eaten and I was afraid I’d run out of leaves…….that’s when I decided to buy a couple of new plants…..(to feed with)….I sat them in my screen room and transferred all the caterpillars to them ….they could consume the whole leaf instead of only part and they seemed so much more active…It was a lot of fun watching them….sure beats TV…

Next thing I knew I had a big caterpillar and it looked like it was ready to find a safe place to pass from the final stage of caterpillar to pupa (chrysalis)……and the 18 or so others would be following along in a week or so…..now…I wouldn’t mind having them running free in the screen room…but there would be no way for me to keep track of when a butterfly needed to be let out….my husband suggested screening in a bird cage and I remembered the big wooden one stored in the shed….and that’s how I ended up with a Butterfly House.

We can leave for a few days, even if there  is a chrysalis and  it’s getting close to the time for it to emerge….We can sit the cage on the back porch and remove the door and they can leave when they are ready to.

The 5 plants in it will be planted in the back yard for the next season.

My milkweed plants in the yard are getting seed pods.

I will collect some of the seeds to start plants with, incase I want to raise a few butterflies,  and let the rest reseed itself. I hope to have a lot of plants for them when they return from their migration. 

This plant still has an egg or two on it.

You can see this plant would not have fed all those caterpillars and the other plant is much smaller……

 

Milkweed is also the larval plant for the Queen Butterfly.

It’s another beauty I wouldn’t mind having visit the yard on a regular basis.

My first Chrysalis

Yesterday afternoon my largest caterpillar made it’s way to the top of the cage….spun a web and anchored it’s hind feet to the top.

A few hours later it dropped into the “J” position….and remained that way all night.

By mid day it looked as if it was getting a bit fatter…you can see that even it’s feet look fat……every now and then there would be a little movement.

Around 4 this afternoon it started to get very active….trying to shed it’s skin for the last time. 

The caterpillar had been changing inside it’s skin to a pupa….it started moving around and the skin eventually moved up to the top

Then it started moving a lot more until it had finally shed the skin. At this point it is very soft.

But within an hour it will harden into a protective shell.

In 9-14 days I will have hatched my first Monarch Butterfly.

Watch the gyrations as it shed’s it’s skin and the pupa emerges..

The Butterfly House

Jim took our old “bird cage” apart…all the wire was removed….the points ground down and then I ground most of the old paint off.  We were working on a “hurry up” schedule…the large caterpillar had started traveling… looking for a place to make his chrysalis.   It’s not fancy…but will do for now.

We screened it all in…put 2 flat slats in the top and one set at an angle for it to use to get to the top. We didn’t have it in the cage more than 5 minutes and it was headed up…right now its on one of the slats. Hope it doesn’t start building tonight.

 

 

I couldn’t believe he found his way to the top so fast…

This is the one that was almost an inch a day ago…It’ll be the next one up.

There are 5 smaller one is this plant.

 

The dark egg hatched yesterday….the lighter one hatched today….another should hatch tomorrow and the last 4 in a day or two.

A week or so ago I couldn’t spot an egg…now I can tell when they are getting close to hatching. They are so small when they first come out it’s almost impossible to spot them.

My Monarch “nursery”

I have so many tiny caterpillars I decided to go to the local plant nursery and buy a few potted milkweed plants.  I ended up with 4.

I will keep the plants in the screen room until the caterpillars  grow up. Jim is going  to build me a portable butterfly house. He’s remodeling a large birdcage that my Mom had built several years ago. He’ll take out the 1/4 “ wire and replace it with window screen. I will have a wooden perch or branch in the top for them to build their chrysalis on. Once they become beautiful butterflies, I will release them.

Here are a few of the little ones. The two on the L are about 1/4 of an inch….you have to look very closely to see the one that just hatched.

 

When I was picking out my plants….I spotted this good sized caterpillar. I know they sell them at the nursery ( $8 each), so I told them there was a large one on my plant and asked if they wanted it….they told me I could have it.  Great…it should be ready to build a chrysalis fairly soon.

I got my plants home…took the little caterpillars that I hatched and put them on the plants…several hours later I was checking on them to see how they were doing….and guess what!!!  I saw 2 more caterpillars….one is about 3/4 of an inch and the other almost an inch.  This is the larger and the smaller of the 3 that came with the plants.

 

I noticed the tiny hatchlings are  more active on the living plant than they were on the cut leaves. I  read  there is a better survival rate that way, and that helped me make the decision to buy more plants. It makes sense that the leaves would lose some of their food value after being cut and wilting. Perhaps that is why.

My plants outside have at least 4 tiny caterpillars and a few more eggs. I think I will let them hatch and grow naturally and see how many survive.

I should have an abundance of Monarch Butterflies before long.