Egg To Caterpillar

*|MC:SUBJECT|*

Grow Wings!

Maybe you've visited Hoerr Nursery recently, had a peek inside our butterfly house and thought, "Raising butterflies would be fun, but I could never do it myself."

It's easier than you think! Read on to find out how to raise monarch butterflies from egg to caterpillar, and how you can make a difference while doing it!

Did you know that only 10% of monarch eggs survive to adulthood? Many are parasitized by predatory wasps. Disease can be a major issue, especially in warm winter areas. And while monarchs make themselves unappetizing to most birds by feeding exclusively on milkweed as caterpillars, that doesn't always stop birds from taste testing!

With the monarch population in severe decline, hand-raising monarchs from eggs can protect the caterpillars from early hazards, getting as many healthy adults as possible back out into the wild to reproduce. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy to raise other types of butterflies as well.

Want to give it a try? Here's what you need*:
1. Access to a good amount of milkweed
2. Two or three plastic snap-lid boxes, at least shoebox sized
3. A habitat for the largest caterpillars to transform into chrysalises and emerge as butterflies (You can find easy construction ideas here)
4. A shallow dish
5. Marbles or small stones
6. Nearby nectar flowers (See last week's newsletter for a list.)

Choose a spot to keep your butterflies that's cool and shaded, with no direct sunlight. The snap lid boxes are best kept indoors, at room temperature.

Once you have everything ready, it's time to go egg hunting! Looking for monarch eggs might sound intimidating, but the earlier you find your monarch babies, the less chance they have of exposure to parasites or disease. If you're worried that you won't spot the eggs, just look for caterpillars at first.

Monarchs typically lay their eggs on the undersides of milkweed leaves, although you'll also sometimes find them on flower buds or stems. The eggs are very small, so you may want to use a magnifying glass to examine your finds more closely. They have a distinctive, upright oval shape and fine ridges from top to bottom, and you'll see a black spot at the top of the egg if a monarch caterpillar is about to emerge. Here's what they look like:

If you find an egg, gently detach the entire leaf from the plant and put it into a "hatchling" plastic box with a snap on lid. It's important to keep the eggs and really tiny caterpillars separate, so that the big guys don't munch them by mistake!

In case you were wondering about putting monarchs in a sealed box, the developing caterpillars will get enough air as you open and close the lid to check on them, and the snap lid boxes are the best way to keep your leaves from drying out. Plus, it keeps them from escaping, which is something they're very good at!

You'll probably find caterpillars that have already hatched during your egg hunts. Telltale signs to look out for include chewed leaves and green or black caterpillar poop on the leaves below a feeding caterpillar. Gently remove the leaf that the caterpillar is on, and put it with your other caterpillars in the same life stage.

Monarch eggs should hatch within 3-5 days. If the leaf that the egg is on begins to yellow during this time, you can carefully cut around the egg with scissors and place the cut section on a fresh milkweed leaf. The bottom side of the fresh leaf should be facing up, because the first part of the leaf that the emerging caterpillars will eat are the fine hairs on the leaf's underside.

The caterpillar newborns will start small, and they'll want to eat right away! They'll stay in this stage for 1-3 days before shedding their skin and progressing to their second stage of growth.

At this point, you can gently move the second-stage caterpillars to a second and third stage box of their own, either by transferring both them and the leaf that they're on, or by carefully clipping off the leaf around them and moving them on the leaf piece. Here's a second stage caterpillar that's just been relocated:

Within 1-3 days these caterpillars will reach the third stage, which only lasts another 1-3 days. They'll eat more as they get bigger, so it's important to raise similar sized stages separately.

After the third stage the caterpillars will get a whole lot bigger! As soon as you spot fourth or fifth stage caterpillars, transfer them to the habitat where they'll transform into butterflies.

Here's a group of third stage caterpillars, along with one fourth stage one that needs to be moved.

When a caterpillar box looks like this, it's time to clean it and give the caterpillars fresh leaves!

Carefully lift out each leaf, tapping off as much caterpillar poop as possible, and set them aside on the box lid. Inspect the box carefully to make sure that you haven't missed any caterpillars. Remember, they're escape artists, and they may be up the sides of the box or on the underside of the lid.

Empty the caterpillar poop into a trash can and clean the box out with mild soapy water. Rinse and dry it thoroughly afterward.

Add new milkweed leaves to the box, and very gently transfer the caterpillars back in. (At this stage they may be handled with your hands if you're careful.) Discard the old, chewed up leaves, but make sure you check them over thoroughly for small caterpillars first.

Your teenage caterpillars are well on their way to adulthood!

Next week we'll cover the final phases of raising them, from the fourth stage, through their transformation, and all the way to releasing the butterflies. Stay tuned!

*Note that this guide is intended for readers local to Central Illinois- if you live in an area where disease pressure is high, you'll want to take additional precautions to protect the caterpillars that you raise.

There's only a few days left to spend your Hardy Bucks this year! Now through August 15th, bring in your Hardy Bucks and spend them just like cash for up the 50% of the value of any in-stock merchandise, in the garden center or at Stone Market!

Mark your calendars for our Grass Seed Special, August 24th-September 19th. Everything you need to start a new lawn or overseed your existing one, delivered to your door!

Package #1
Delivered for $99*
Covers ~250 sq ft
1 ton enriched topsoil
1lb emerald seed mix
1 bale straw

Package #2
Delivered for $149*
Covers ~500 sq ft
2 tons enriched topsoil
2lbs emerald seed mix
2 bales straw

Package #3
Delivered for $199*
Covers ~750 sq ft
3 tons enriched topsoil
3lbs emerald seed mix
3 bales straw

Pre-order your package today! Call Stone Market at 309.689.2513.

*Additional fuel surcharges apply for non-local delivery