I post regularly with butterfly and caterpillar pictures on Bluesky and have had people ask about it so I thought it was a good time to do a blog of what I’m doing and why. I’m not an expert! But I do try to keep up with what’s going on in monarch research, and I’ve got several years of observation behind it.

So for starters, I raise monarchs. Here’s what it looks like: I start by keeping an eye out for butterflies in the spring. I track their migration and when they reach my area, I start checking the milkweed in my yard for eggs. Once I find eggs, I pull the whole leaf off the plant and keep them in sealed containers lined with damp paper towels. I keep the containers in the shade outside on my deck. As the eggs hatch, I move the caterpillar (again leaf and all) to a separate sealed container. Once they hit third to fourth instar, I move them into the bug tent, which has milkweed plants in jars of water. They stay there until they’ve made and then emerged from chrysalis, and then I let them go into my front yard.

Now, here’s why I do all this in this specific way. First, a lot of things (ants, spiders, wasps) will eat the eggs and caterpillars. Even the big chonky fifth instars aren’t safe, unfortunately. I’ve seen wasps eat the bigger ones. I recently saw some bigger ants attacking a fourth instar (which I promptly rescued from the garden and put in the bug tent where it’s now doing fine). So I keep them sealed away from predators.

The sealed containers with damp paper towel keep the leaves from drying out and shrivelling. I keep the eggs and caterpillars separate because the bigger caterpillars will eat the eggs and sometimes kill smaller caterpillars. I’m pretty sure it’s accidental, but it still happens. The caterpillars will spend around 24 hours motionless on a leaf when they moult. They moult several times. If they’re disturbed during the moult, they often die.

Seriously, these things are so fucking fragile and easy to kill. In addition to all the things that want to eat them.

Clearly they survive just fine in the wild. I recently found 6 big caterpillars in my garden because I wasn’t as thorough searching for eggs as normal. Would they have been fine if I’d left them? Probably. Though one I did rescue from ants (it was bleeding and everything) and another I took off a plant that was swarmed by wasps only an hour later. Those two probably wouldn’t have survived without my intervention.

So anyway, I have several containers to keep eggs and caterpillars at different stages of development separate to keep them safe from predators and each other. Everything needs to be cleaned of debris regularly. I keep everything outside because there’s research suggesting that caterpillars raised indoors won’t migrate. I keep the sealed containers in the shade so the sun doesn’t overheat them and cook the caterpillars. Even doing all this, a lot of them still die.

I handle them as infrequently as possible, especially when they’re smaller. I’ve seen ants eat a chrysalis, so that’s why they stay in the tent until the butterflies emerge. I put them in my front yard away from my dogs, because the butterflies aren’t always great at flying their first couple of tries, and sometimes they end up on the ground.

If I leave everything alone and let nature take its course, I’d probably still end up with a dozen butterflies surviving. But with intervention, they do so much better. This year has not been a good year, but I’ve already released a couple dozen butterflies with nearly that many left in the tent. My record is 161 butterflies released in a year.

This isn’t something everyone needs to do. Honestly just planting more milkweed and native flowers is a tremendous help. We can’t do everything, but if everyone picks a cause or two to really throw time and effort into, we get a better future. Helping monarch butterflies is one of the causes I’ve chosen. If it’s something you want to try, I’m always happy to answer questions and offer advice. Monarch Watch is a fantastic resource too.