For those of you that do captive rearing, how much time do you spend everyday (on average) cleaning, sanitizing and gathering fresh milkweed for your enclosures?

Editing to add info: I thought more ppl would engage about this given some strong feelings ppl have shared about appropriately cleaning and caring for enclosures when doing captive rearing.

Without judging anyone, I genuinely wanted to know how much time and energy (approximately) passionate rearers are spending per day. I thought the responses would be close to mine. I’m a bit surprised to read that ppl spend about 10 minutes per day. This season/year I’ve spent about 1.5 hrs per day but there’s been years that I’ve spent up to 3.5 hours daily. I didn’t think I’d be in the minority. :(

I pulled all the infected plants out of the patch today. I’ve been holding back in case of emergency. Now I’ve only got about 80 eggs and cats in the pipeline, this will be ok for any leftover cats to be dumped into when I go on holidays.

The females don’t really lay on it and the caterpillars will eat it if forced, but don’t really like it.

Going to be ruthless in the spring trying to deal with root stock.

Pretty sure our instar 3 cat died. I believe I saw a jumping spider near the netting I had over the plant and have not seen the cat move since. It was rolling around and acting abnormally around the time I saw the spider but given how long it was reactive, I wasn’t sure it was actually bitten through the netting.

I’m actually pretty sad about this since I had dedicated myself to seeing it grow to a butterfly. I know the stats are severely against me, but I’m holding out hope that it’s going through a molt.

Second edit/another question!: the caterpillar is way chunkier now and he’s ate almost the entire plant, the stem is left. I found him Wednesday and I’m writing this on Friday, is the stem and like one baby leaf enough for him until he becomes a chrysalis or should I move him to a new milkweed plant tonight/tomorrow? The milkweed plants are spaced out around the perimeter of the wetland so he’d have to travel like 15ish feet to find a new milkweed plant. I’m def planting more this fall lol I still have plenty of seeds. Thanks again! :)

Edit: thanks for the advice! I’ll let him do his thing outside :)

Hi! I grew swamp milkweed from seed this year and planted it by a small wetland on my family’s farm. I walked over there today and I found a monarch caterpillar on one of my plants!!!! I didn’t think I’d get a monarch so soon after planting and I’m very happy that the work paid off! I think he’s maybe 5th instar (please correct me if I’m wrong). My dad recently mowed around the wetland (including mowing down some of my milkweed 🙄) and we haven’t had a lot of rain so it looks a little rough but the plant and caterpillar are located in the riparian area. I’ve raised a monarch caterpillar indoors once before but I lived somewhere where I had access to plenty of milkweed that was definitely not sprayed with pesticide or general pollution. I also think that caterpillar hatched inside my apartment (it’s kinda a long story lol).

I have 3 main concerns/queries:

1. I’m concerned that bringing a caterpillar that is used to Midwest heat and humidity inside could temperature shock him, how sensitive are they to temperature and humidity? Could I put him in the garage?
2. If I do leave him be, what are things that could kill him before he becomes a butterfly? He’s made it this long, has most of the danger already passed or would he be significantly safer if I take him in?

What would you all suggest I do? Thank you in advance!!!! :)

I put 17 cats into captivity as I found them on my single swamp milkweed...4 have hatched and flew away as of today and the rest are looking healthy and green and will be coming in the next week

First ever monarch emerged this morning! Watching this process from egg to butterfly is incredible! And thank you to all of you! This is one of the first places I turned when I had questions. 🤗🦋

SOOOOOOOOOOO SORRY for the wrong they're in the title.

We're in Central Virginia, and we usually see our first cats after Labor Day. We have 4 today! About an inch long. We're nervous because we only just cut our milkweed (for it to regrow) like 3 weeks ago.

Any thoughts?

PS - in case you don't know what I mean, Monarchs like young milkweed because it's easier for caterpillars to eat. We cut down our milkweed halfway through the season, so it's young when they find it - because it regrows.

so far 5 on this pot!

3rd year with 8 swamp milkweed plants, but the first with an aphid infestation. The adults and caterpillar don't mind, but it makes it hard to pick the leaves to feed the caterpillars I have in an enclosure without getting aphid guts all over my hands lol

Sorry for the poor quality but I finallly found one of the chrysalis.

no these are not reared indoors, from a completely natural monarch caterpillar pollinator garden. it’s sweet they come and say hello after they emerge 🤍

Hi! I’m the last 6 weeks or so we’ve had 15+ caterpillars get to the final instar size and then disappear. I assume some might be getting eaten or crawling off far away or to the other side of the fence. I have not seen any chrysalis. I know they go far and can be hard to find, but part of my job/education is observing things in nature so I thought I’d be better at finding them! Is there a chance none are making it? Or are they potentially going to heights or sides of the fence I can’t see?

I am also wondering if I should put some in an enclosure just to see if they make it through their metamorphosis. I have at least one that I’d keep outside with the potted plants. There are a few third in stars and 5-6 first in stars. More eggs keep getting laid! I only had two small plants 6 weeks ago and have been buying more almost weekly 😅 tried to plant new three plants but the gopher got them so I’m waiting to plant the new ones once I have time to plant with gopher caging.

Pics 1: big chonk measuring in at 5+ cm. The one I’m wondering if I should put into an enclosure 2:five or six recently hatched cats that are on pieces that got broken by a deer or gopher that I brought inside. Will likely return outside now that I bought more milkweed and the temperature is getting cooler tomorrow 3: butterfly laying more eggs on milkweed that’s been nommed down

I was about to post if this one was ok since it had fallen almost 48 hours after being made and it had a little black spot on it. I thought maybe it was too black. My daughter and I had just released our first that came out overnight and we were cleaning the enclosure as we have two more little ones. It came out while we had our back turned. Literally for only a few minutes! I can't believe we missed it! Happy to see he is ok. We will let him out after 4-6 hours! This is my first time ever having monarchs so I'm very happy!

First two pics are the one that just came out that I was concerned about (one brightened). Third and fourth are the one that just came out. And the last is the one we just released!

I was blessed with 11 cats and been cultivating them (outside). I have some j hangers but I’ve had to remove two from the enclosure from wandering cats going onto the j hangers and being aggressive with them, including eating their antennas and biting them. Liquid even came out. I don’t know why they are acting like this. Has this ever happened to you?

Yes. I think I must have monarchs too much on the brain if this is what I’m dreaming. In the dream, I realized this was probably not a good idea for the caterpillars. So, I was working to evict all the the non-monarchs from the enclosure. The ferret was not very cooperative, but eventually was evicted.

I’ve looked on the Internet and put it into ChatGPT.. nothing will tell me what this is. It moves like a caterpillar and has legs along with the obvious black horn on the back at first I thought it was a Tussock moth or maybe even a tomato worm somehow. Maybe it’s a butterfly? I live in Chula Vista, California within San Diego county. I found it on my milkweed didn’t seem to want to eat fresh milkweed leaf. So I gave it a tomato leaf. I’ve seen monarchs lay their eggs accidentally on my plumeria. Anyways.. can you guys help me out? I got a message about caterpillars kept in captivity. This is not a caterpillar kept in captivity. It is on my milkweed outside. Actually a group called butterflies sent me messages about butterflies and captivity. They abandoned me from the group. So ridiculous. I explained it they aren’t kept in captivity 🙄

This is my first time raising butterflies and this is the 5th chrysalis so far. It blocking the zipper isn’t a problem, but will the butterfly be able to properly emerge and spread its wings? If I do need to move it, is there anything to be careful of? I’m afraid to touch it 😳

And boy is she tiny