Hatching Monarch butterflies is something I’ve wanted to do for several years. These beautiful wonders of nature are currently listed on the endangered species list by the Center for Biological Diversity. They could use a little help.
There are always Monarch butterflies dancing around in my victory garden. Every day I see anywhere from 2 to 4 of them flittering from flower to flower. Its fun to watch them engaging in a game of tag as they perform their aerobatic feats of mating. I’ve purposely set apart a section of my backyard as a Butterfly Garden. Specifically chosen botanicals and strategically placed milkweed plants create the perfect location for hatching these beauties. No matter how secure my yard is, they are still at risk.
Mating & Egg Stage
Male Monarch butterflies are easy to spot. They have thinner black veining on their wings that allows us to see their scent glands. They appear as a black dot on the lower half of each wing. These glands are what they use to let the females know they are in the area.
Female Monarch butterflies have thicker black veining on their wings and no scent glands. During mating season, they can lay 300 – 500 eggs over a two-week period. In captivity, the record for the most eggs laid by a single female is an astonishing 1,179! It’s no easy task either. The female Monarch secretes a small amount of a sticky glue-like substance and attaches her eggs to the underside of the milkweed plant leaves.
Once laid, it takes about 4 days for the egg to hatch into a teeny, tiny caterpillar.
Caterpillars – Larva Stage
As you can see, newly hatched caterpillars are so small, they can easily get gobbled up by birds, insects, and yes, other caterpillars. This is one of the reasons caterpillars are safer indoors than left out in the wild. If we’re going to bring back the once thriving population of these beautiful pollinators, then we need to be actively giving them a hand.
It’s easiest to find the plump caterpillars, pluck them off a plant, and bring them inside. With a little patience and time, you can be the most help by hunting for caterpillar eggs underneath leaves, and bringing the entire leaf in. DO NOT TRY TO REMOVE THE EGG FROM THE LEAF! Female butterflies are particularly good at what they do. You will not be able to remove the delicate, tiny egg without damaging it and killing the growing caterpillar inside. Just simply pluck the entire leaf.
We keep a small jar on our mantle to safely keep butterfly eggs in until hatching. By poking some holes in a piece of aluminum foil, the leaves stay aerated and dry while the caterpillars form. Be sure to keep it out of direct sunlight.
Once the caterpillars hatch, we check on them daily until we think they’re big enough to be moved to our butterfly house. We have other caterpillars of all sizes in there so we want to make sure they can get away from a leaf an unsuspecting caterpillar is munching on. It’s usually just a day or two until we move them. In the meantime, they will munch on the leaf they were originally attached to.
Milkweed
Milkweed is the only plant Monarch caterpillars eat, and they eat A LOT of it. Remember the book, the Very Hungry Caterpillar? It got its name for a great reason. When we first began hatching Monarch butterflies, we bought a single milkweed plant from our local garden center. We thought it would be big enough. Within a week we found 5 caterpillars on the mostly eaten plant and quickly realized we needed more milkweed. All the garden centers had sold out, so we stopped at a local nursery and found several more plants. We bought 3 more and brought them home.
My idea was to keep one plant in the pot, indoors for the butterfly house we’d ordered, and plant the other 2 outside. Our biggest caterpillar disappeared before we got home with the plants. I’m hoping he crawled off and made a chrysalis somewhere. The other 4 caterpillars were still there munching away so I don’t think a predator got to him.
We set up our butterfly house, set the pot with the milkweed in the center, collected our 4 remaining caterpillars, and put them safely onto the milkweed inside. Then we planted the other 2 plants along with a butterfly plant we’d also picked up to attract more Monarchs.
Within a few days, four 4 little friends had munched away 90% of the plant and were starting on the stems! I went out back and dug up one of the milkweed plants and put it into an empty pot. We traded out the plant and relocated the caterpillars to it. They immediately continued their leaf buffet.
The Waiting Game
When you’re hatching Monarch butterflies, it becomes a great source of entertainment for the whole family. We kept the butterfly house in our dining room so we could watch them while we ate. Everyone took turns checking on them throughout the day.
Finally, after just 3 days indoors, one of our caterpillars climbed up the side of the butterfly house to the roof. He wandered around for a few hours before picking a spot to settle in. Of course he picked a spot close to the zipper access door which made it difficult for us to get inside and water the milkweed for the others.
Outside, a Monarch caterpillar can travel up to 30 feet to find a place to form its chrysalis. They are also known from picking precarious spots like the handlebar of a child’s bike, the edge of a barbeque, or the tip of a garden tool. During the spring and summer months be sure to check these areas carefully. Also, if you’re going to do trimming or other gardening tasks, look around first to make sure there aren’t any of these precious gems hiding where they may get damaged.
Chrysalis – Pupa Stage
If you find a chrysalis that’s in a perilous spot, you can move it. We ended up having to move our first chrysalis. Dubbed “Optimus” meaning the first and also named after a Transformer (see what we did there?), his chrysalis was in danger when caterpillars #2 & #3 began their hunt for the perfect location.
A Monarch caterpillar will anchor itself to its chosen spot by attaching a web like substance to stick to it. During this procedure, the caterpillar will appear to just be sitting still for half a day or so. Once it’s ready, the caterpillar will assume the transformation position by hanging down in a “J” with its hind end stuck to the spot above. As soon as its ready, the caterpillar skin will split open at the lowest point and crumple its way up to the top. The light green sleeve appearing out from underneath of it is what forms the chrysalis.
When the next 2 caterpillars, Alpha & Bravo, or the “Twins” as we called them, began climbing around the roof of the butterfly house for their approved locations, Bravo walked through Optimus’ webbing a few times pulling part of it loose. Very soon, we saw Optimus’ chrysalis sinking lower and lower as the webbing stretched down. We knew if we didn’t intervene, we risked losing him.
A quick Google search led us to several butterfly experts with the answer. Using a thin, soft, cotton string, we tied a loop and slipped it up around the chrysalis, tying it around the black stem at the top. This must be done extremely carefully as you CAN NOT touch the chrysalis. Doing so can damage or kill the butterfly inside. After ensuring the string was secure, we relocated the chrysalis to an empty stick on the milkweed plant and tied it on.
Hatching
It takes about 2 weeks from the time the caterpillar hatches to the time it’s ready for its pupa form in the chrysalis. After forming the chrysalis, it can take 9 – 14 days for the butterfly to emerge. All 3 of our first butterflies emerged on day 9. Our 4th one, we named Eggbert (as in “Last one in is a rotten egg”) hatched on his 10th day.
Hatching begins by the chrysalis turning from green, to brown, to black. We’ve found, once the chrysalis begins turning brown, the butterfly will be hatching within the next 24 hours. You’ll know it’s time for the butterfly to hatch when the chrysalis is transparent enough to see clearly through the sides.
When the butterfly is ready to emerge, the chrysalis will split open, usually at the bottom.
The butterfly will then begin pushing against the chrysalis to crack it open enough for it to slide out, revealing it’s winged glory.
Once fully emerged, the butterfly will hang out on the edge of the chrysalis for a few hours while its wings dry and harden.
During this time the butterflies “tongue”, or proboscis, which is in two pieces at hatching, seals into one piece. The proboscis is a long, flexible tube the butterfly uses to drink nectar from the flowers it visits.
Butterfly – Adult Stage
We ended up hatching 3 males and 1 female from our 4 caterpillars.
Monarch butterflies don’t really eat anything the first 24 hours of life. They spend their time drying their wings and adjusting to life outside their chrysalis that first day. Once their wings are dry and hardened, they are ready to be set free. As we were getting Eggbert out to release him, we counted 4 more caterpillars in the butterfly house! We have no idea how they got there, but I suspect they were hiding amongst the milkweed leaves when we swapped out the plants.
We released each of our Monarchs near our butterfly plant.
All 4 of our butterflies hatched during Pollinators Week. This is a week set aside to help raise awareness of the importance of pollinators and how humans can help them. I had fun posting our progress on social media.
As for that initial milkweed plant, I had set the pot with the stripped sticks out on the porch to toss in the trash. I got busy and didn’t get around to it. Good thing too! When I walked past it 4 days later, there were tiny leaf buds growing on the stems! I was so surprised! I gave it some water and we watched it re-bloom into a healthy plant. It’s now back in out backyard awaiting the cycle to begin again.
More Resources
There are a lot of great resources online about Monarch butterflies. I hope by sharing our experience, I can inspire you to lend them a hand too. You can learn more about Monarch butterflies and other pollinators by checking out these resources I used at pollinator.org, monarchwatch.org, or saveourmonarchs.org. You can even have your yard designated as an official Monarch Waystation through Monarch Watch which we hope to be doing very soon.