Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Monarch release ....., 1 by beckygardener

beckygardener wrote:
Here's for all my friends who love their Monarchs ......

I have been releasing a LOT of Monarch Butterflies over the past 3 days. I have released, I believe about 46 of them so far. I have about 5 chrysalises left to go. Almost half (18) of them were from HD. The rest were born and raised in my backyard/cage! LOL

I released 14-18 a day these past 3 days. The fun part was releasing them in batches of 7-8. They kept emerging, so I had to move them into cages to dry because the hatchery just isn't big enough for that many at one time. Once they were dry, I'd sit them on my hand, open the screen door, and give them a little nudge to set them free!

Honestly, they are just so beautiful!

I could never become tired of raising them even if it is a hassle at times.

I doubt very many will hang around because there is no milkweed in my yard at the moment. All the bare milkweed stalks were cut back. The cats ate just about every leaf on almost 100 plants. (Though the new leaves are coming out on all the plants. But it will take a while to grow big enough to support another batch of Monarch cats.) They always hang around my yard for the first day after being released. And then they fly off to find more milkweed. Probably the most that will hang around will be 3. They are territorial for sure. There is one large male chasing all the ones I released. He thinks he OWNS my yard. LOL!

Anyway, here is a photo of the hatchery. I was removing them every morning. And then again in the afternoon and evening. They were eclosing all day long. This is a morning shot. I always had that many each morning because they often eclose at sunrise. And you can see in the photo that 2 were just newly eclosed and their wings weren't even expanded yet. My family actually got a kick out of seeing that many eclose at a time. Very cool to watch!

Edited to say:
This was my LAST large batch (photo taken yesterday. I figured I'd better get a shot before they were all gone!).


This message was edited Jan 1, 2007 8:37 AM