Cghpnd, I'm so sorry you're having bad luck. Did they seem OK when you found them? Are there more cats still living? If so, make sure you separate the eggs from them. You probably want to have multiple containers that you can move the cats and eggs to as they grow, and clean the alternate containers with bleach each time you switch them out. There are nasty diseases that Monarchs can carry and pass on to one another. Some people who raise Monarchs insist that each cat should be kept in an individual container. It certainly makes sense to keep small groups separate, so if one container is infected, at least the other groups have a chance to avoid infection. And wash hands and milkweed carefully. Again, some people soak their milkweed in a weak bleach solution and then rinse it thoroughly before giving it to their cats, in case sick cats have crawled over the leaves before they collected them. Sorry to be a bit of a wet blanket, but there is obviously something seriously wrong, and I want the rest of your experience to be positive. Martha

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!

Thanks - I am in St. Louis. It stays warm here through September, and sometimes into October. Another question - how many leaves will the average cat eat throughout his life? I am now up to 7 cats and 4 eggs, and only have 3 plants. They are about 4' tall with two "stems" each.

Wish you every bit of success, Vinni! It's really not necessary to spritz water inside the container - in fact, doing so might actually do harm as it will encourage mold growth. Show answer to your inquiry: your cat is simply getting ready to molt. They'll do this a total of four times before forming a chrysalis. Prior to molting, they'll crawl away some where and just sit for a few hours; and then they'll molt before you know it. Here's nice write-up on the monarch life cycle/stages. And here's a good overview on how to raise monarch cats indoors. (Googling 'raising monarch butterflies' will yield tons of helpful information.) We love progress pics, so post when you can. Good luck! PS Don't freak, but after they molt, they'll turn around and eat the molted skin. :)