Morning Glories: Morning Glories 2008 #25, 0 by beckygardener

beckygardener wrote:
When I raise Monarchs, I use my tall purchased cages and actually put a potted Milkweed plant inside each cage for them. But I must warn you, most cats are hearty feeders, so you have to have lots of their host plants! Most of the plants are considered weeds and grow quite fast luckily! :-) And you have to keep the cages clean from frass (cat poop) or they will get sick and die. Sometimes the cats just die because of other diseases as well. But if I left the cats in the yard on the plants, I'd have very, very few emerging butterflies and moths. I have so many wasps here and they love eating caterpillars. So that is why I hand-raise them. Plus I love watching caterpillars change and morph into beautiful butterflies and moths. :-) Your kids would probably love watching too. We do this every year in my class and the kiddos are really young, but they love watching these caterpillars and are in awe when they become butterflies! :-) Such fun!!!

Here is a photo of the inside of the cage before I clean it. The dark brown poop is everywhere. Time to clean. There are 2 Skipper Butterfly cats that are pupating now as you might be able to discern in the photo. They will morph and become those cute and fast little butterflies that I love! Their host plant is Canna which I have plenty in my yard. I see that you get White Peacock butterflies in your area. Get some Bacopa (which is a water plant) and put in a water pot and leave outside! It will attract those beautiful butterflies and they tend to stay in the yard or area of their host plants. :-)