Is it really essential that the monarch cats keep eating the same kind of milkweed they hatched on? I ask because I am running out of tropical milkweed and have much more a. incarnata, yet the monarchs seem to perfer to lay on the tropical. I won't b able to keep collecting from the tropical ones at this rate.
Also, I unfortunately found two dead cats this morning, one had made his J and (this is gross) looked as if something had stuck it in the side and he was oozing. The other was about the make his J and looks like he just dried out. He was the last of 7 cats in one cage, all the others made their chrysilis'.
I check for bugs and such throughout the day and have only removed one in any of the cages. What else could be doing this, or is this just the way it goes?
Thankfully, the vast majority of my cats are still looking good, but then, so were these two until ths morning.
Thanks,
Maureen
More caterpillar raising questions
I found the answers to my questions here, in case anyone else needs the info:
http://www.livemonarch.com/advanced.htm
Maureen
Maureen
Thanks for sharing, I bookmarked the site.
How are your remaining cats doing.
Chris (a newbe to Butterfly raising)
Well, two more are hanging in their J position, and I have one black Chrysilis, and I can see wings in it and a few others!
But I am definately going to order this http://www.livemonarch.com/castle.htm for next time because it will be much easier to maintain than a bunch of small containers. I also watched one hatch out of an egg today :)
Maureen