Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Black Chrysalis how long; & what does a sick one look like?, 0 by mlm01

mlm01 wrote:
Thanks for the link to your thread. Looking at the monarch chrysalides you removed the one that looks more brown looks like the one I flushed yesterday, only mine was oozing brown stuff (yuk).

Mr. Hill mentioned OE which I was also concerned about. However, I think maybe something in the cage, like bacteria may have gotten to this one as a caterpillar. Anyway there is apparently a kit to let you test for OE at monarchwatch.org, when I find it I’ll post the link.

When I say the one cat was convulsing, I mean his head was jerking up repeatedly for several seconds a few times. He is still eating however. I have him isolated because his cellmate did die already so we'll see what happens.

Today I have 4 butterflies....they emerge fast! The rest of the chrysalids look ok to me now. My biggest problem now is I'm afraid I'll either run out of milkweed leaves or kill my a. incarnata from pulling leaves.

Speaking of BSTs and halloween, I have one BST cat which came on some fennel I bought and intend to plant for butterfly purposes. At least I think he's a bst. He shot his "orange horn thing" out at me when I moved him to a safer spot once--very halloweeny! Here he is: