I'm in a similar situation. I have about 36 cats in various stages left to raise. The most recent 9 just hatched yesterday. They were laid on my new this year and still very small a. speciosa. There will not be enough leaves of it to support them even if they ate it to the ground. I am hoping they will eat a. syriaca since I still have a lot of that. It looks rough but the other cats still eat it. I make sure and give the young ones the newest growth. The bigger cats get the older tough leaves after a good rinse and wipe down to remove aphids and their sticky honeydew. I looked up the different toxicity levels on monarchwatch for the milkweeds I have. Speciosa is one of the lowest, tuberosa is low, syriaca is moderate, incarnata is high, and currasivica is the highest. Just based on that I maybe should try switching them to tuberosa, but experience tells me that is usually their last choice for milkweed. I put a little sprig of the youngest tender syriaca in with them and moved one of the 1st instar cats onto it to see if it will eat it. I never have any problems moving the tiny cats with a very small fine paintbrush and have been doing it for years. I seem to recall someone saying you can actually move the eggs carefully with your fingernail, but I am afraid I would damage the egg. I would think that would be one way to make sure they will eat a different food. If they never even taste another milkweed they won't know what they are missing!

Frequently the small cats will eat the flowers of the tropical milkweed, however I've never seen large cats eat flowers. The big cats will happily eat the young green seed pods, however. Since your milkweed is narrow leaf (Asclepias fascicularis?) perhaps the leaves are not supplying enough food for them?

Turk's Cap is a host to the White Skipper, but it's range is only into parts of very southern Texas. It might host Painted Ladies since they use many malva family plants, but probably not a favored host. I grow it for the hummers. Yes, it was the Clammyweed I really wanted. Caelsapinia gillesii is hardy in Oklahoma City as well. I tried to grow seed this spring, but the seedlings did not make it in our weird spring weather this year, darn it! So, yes, I'd love some seed from yours! The Verbesina I have is alternifolia, or Wingstem. It's a pretty plant with a pretty bloom, and what's really cool is it blooms heavily in shade to partial shade which is what it prefers. I also have Cosmic Orange cosmos and Peppermint, red/white striped Zinnias, and Verbena bonariensis. I may have some Dwarf Red Porterweed if I can figure out how to harvest the seeds. They were definitely pollinated by the hummingbirds, the Cloudless Sulphurs, Gulf Fritillaries, and Monarchs, all of which loved the nectar on it. I may also get some seed from my Night Blooming Jasmine, a sphinx moth fave, as well as a white Datura inoxia. Senna bicapsularis is not hardy in your zone or mine, but it reseeds prolifically. I just pull the seedlings I don't want. It is a very nice host plant, the leaves hold up much better than my Senna hebecarpa for raising caterpillars. Waiting til November is probably a good idea because then the frenzy will be over (I hope my tomatos ripen before frost; cross your fingers) and I will have been able to collect all my seed. Susan

Susan, As always my thoughts are my opinions based on many years of actually doing, not just accepting what others say. So they are only FWIW to be taken as a person chooses to take them. IMO common logic dictates that like with most infestation, disease or infection, the level they intrude an individual at can vary widely from minor to massive. That is commonly proved out with OE in Danaidae. If a larvae makes it through complete metamorphosis to an imago that can eclose and form OK, even if OE is present it was a relatively minor infestation in that individual. The opposite being if a larva at any instar, pupa or adult that has OE dies without getting through complete metamorphosis, that individual was obviously infested at a much higher level. Unfortuanately no matter at what level (with OE especially), failure to destroy any sick livestock whether it be OE, another parasatoid, viral or bacterial infection in most cases will promote the spread of any of any of them to other individuals. OE is the prominent one that will carry on to generation after generation beyond a given brood, and nothing but complete elimination of any brood within your control that might be infected with it will help slow it down in a colony. Why in my opinion when it comes to livestock even suspected of possibly having OE it's not worth taking any chances with them "for the good of the species as a whole". For those of use who did/do field work with Lepidoptera, that includes wild Danaidae livestock found or adults netted that show any possibilty of hosting OE. NOTE: Even if you have a very strictly controlled gardening and rearing rigime (which I doubt any of you have), you won't eliminate all of any OE present. So don't go slap happy destroying everything in sight. Instead be analytical and logical, and then decide what is reasonable for your own circumstances. Yes, livestock can have OE and not show any of the so called "visible" signs of it, which IMO are not proof positive of OE anyway and can be from other causes. In part why on my OE thread I offered some habit and condition factors that could also suggest OE is present as well even though they also do not prove OE and can also be from other causes. Bottom line, to prove OE is NOT present in an individual for certain takes a microscope or loupe. And in almost all cases if a larvae it will have to be euthanized to test with any certainty. A possibility to check for OE in pupa is to test the purge of the last instar larva for OE, but unforunately that is not 100%. I'm a lot more scientific in my appraoch to Lepidoptera than all of the folks here, so I don't accept things at face value. I am also skeptical of data from other sources that are not proven to me. The Internet and publications commonly breed misinformation about everything, including Lepidoptera, that is passed on by ACE's who probably got it from another one. So it's prudent not to trust every thing you read on the Internet or in books if it's not from a source you trust. Larry