Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Monarchs Monarchs Everywhere!!, 1 by siouxsie40

siouxsie40 wrote:
About 2-1/2 weeks ago my first Monarch of the season flew into my yard. She immediately started laying eggs on my milkweed. This continued for 3 days in a row. She came the same time every afternoon. I started collecting a few of the eggs right away but then decided to wait to see what hatched on the plants. Before I knew it I had 21 monarch cat babies!! I knew I wouldn't have enough milkweed to feed them all so I brought 7 to my girlfriend who also raises cats and 8 of them I gave to the lady who heads the butterfly club meeting I attend monthly. She told me if I needed more Milkweed to let her know as she has alot of it. That left me with 6 cats which I figured I had enough milkweed for.
That was last Sunday and during the course of this past week I ended up finding 10 more monarch cats. So now I am back up to 16 :) Luckily I picked up a few more milkweed plants on Saturday at a local master gardeners plant sale. I have a few that should be almost done eating...at least I hope so LOL

Just a few pictures of the cats and the cage my husband built for me as a Christmas present. I also included a pic of my lone Gulf Fritillary cat which came along with a passion vine plant I won at the butterfly meeting raffle. I also have 1 GF cat in a chrysalis which should be hatching soon.

Lisa