You could also make your own 'breezy' containers. Make a frame out of something, wood, pvc pipe, whatever and wrap it in screen. If you don't feel like being that creative/crafty (like me) I found some picnic plate covers, they're a metel mesh. One I sewed screen around it and found a plastic bowl, drilled holes in it and sewed the bottom of the screen to the bowl. I use that (hung up, didn't add anything for support to stand it up) for my chrys. to eclose in. And the other I found another (happens to match) plastic bowl. I drilled a few small holes in the bowl, took some wierd yarn/string stuff, tied the plate cover to the bowl. There's 5 strings. And the neat thing is, all I have to do is untie the strings and toss the 2 halves in the dishwasher to disinfect. Below is a link to a simular mesh cover. I bought mine for a buck each at a Dollar General store. And the bowls I used were "Wavy" bowls at walmart for 75 cents. The wavy bowl gave me a little lip on the edge to drill holes in. Be creative! There's lots of stuff out there you can make cages out of. Wire Mesh trash cans, dollar stores usually carry small version. Or the mesh baskets.I find myself looking in the summer clearance stuff lateley go ooh! I could make a cat cage out of that! and that! But I don't really need anymore.... Oh, I did take 2 plastic bottoms from 2 plant pots (the things that are supposed to catch the water), It had 3 raised bumps where it originally attatched to the pot, stuck some small pvc pipe (really small) over 2 of the raised bumps, then attatched the other plastic thing face down on top of the pvc and wrapped it in some screen I had left over, w/ an opening in the front. Made a neat little 10" diamter, 12" tall cage. See, you can use anything! Here is a link that might be useful: mesh food covers

Battling the very same thing right now. Clipped my milkweed to feed my cats last night, rinsed off the milkweed then washed my hands. there must have been just a little residue on my hand and at some point I must have rubbed my eye. But about an hour later, my eye started really burning. Not sure why but I had a hunch it had to do with the milkweed and so I googled it. And sure enough that stuff is super bad for the eyes. I knew it was poisonous but didnt realize the danger to eyes. rinsed eyes well with saline and dropped in some “real tears” after a quick run to the pharmacy. Redness and pain went away but woke up to a fog in my left eye and full blurriness. Called the eye doctor and he fit me in that day. He was taken aback by the intensity of the corneal edema that was on my eye. I told him about the milkweed and the google search I had done. Normally doctors don’t love dr. Google but this time he came in handy. He called the hospital eye specialist (big hospital in LA) to see if he had ever heard of the milkweed reaction and neither had even come across this in their 40+ years of practice. I guess my accident served a good educational purpose. Hope the knowledge can help someone in the future. Eyesight at dr in left eye was 20/200. So legally blind In that eye! So thankful it wasn’t both eyes! I am currently on both muro 128 hypertonic drops and dexamethazone drops. Hoping this starts to resolve tomorrow. So crazy. Will be educating others to be more cautious in future.

Jane, Tom is right. I've fed mine leaves from the Giant Milkweed with great success. I try to wait until they're about 3rd instar, simply because they're a bit larger and of course, eating more with each feeding. When the cats are tiny, I feed them soft leaf material from Tropical, A perennis, A texana or Swan. They don't eat as much when tiny so these small leaves work very well for them. I didn't see much egg laying on the Giant but it may be like Tom says, everything is so exposed on those big leaves, the eggs or tiny cats are more exposed. I did find a few cats on the Giant last season so at least one mama monarch used it. Six monarch cats have settled into their pretty green homes. Still have 20+ to feed and they are at an age where they're really putting away the milkweed. Tom, the giant milkweed is feeding my older Monarch cats again this season. Thank you so much. I still have the largest plant in a big pot and I may just leave it there all season to see how it does. It was grown in ground last year. It is putting on lots of flower buds, many more than it produced last year. Perhaps being a year older has something to do with it's blooming habits. The smaller one, which is currently in a smaller pot, will most likely go back into the ground if I can find a spot that will meet it's needs. I'm running out of garden space. I'm sure I will get better growth with it in ground and I really need it so something else may have to come out of the garden to allow it growing space. I also found a source for seed of this variety of giant milkweed and now have this seed under grow lights and waiting for germination. I'm anxious to see how much growth I can get from first year seedlings. I feel tip cuttings will likely produce stronger growth but I needed to try seed, in case I'm unsuccessful with tip cuttings. My spider milkweed is in the third year and boy, I would need a huge number of plants in order to use it for food for the cats. I think I counted six three year old plants currently up and growing (some even already producing flower buds) but so far, there's not a lot of leaf material on this variety of milkweed. All six together might support one Monarch cat through to maturity but I doubt it. I've had two new Mexican migrators visit recently. One was very faded and missing a portion of upper wing, the other was intact but very faded, with tattered edges on her wings. Both were frantic to deposit their eggs. I watched for about thirty minutes while 'Miss Missing Wing' left eggs on every type of milkweed I grow except for the giant milkweed. Eggs are everywhere. And there's no telling how many more visit when no one is around to see them. There is no way I have enough milkweed to feed if all these eggs hatch. It is sad. I wonder if they had to fly this far north in order to locate milkweed or if they are driven by other instincts? They both seemed to adore the A perennis, even favoring it over Tropical. That was the preferred flower, too, when they finally stopped to nectar. We've had rain and the ground has been so wet, I've still not gotten all my seedlings into the ground. Maybe by mid week. It always takes a while, once planted in ground, before they begin to grow so I'll most likely not get any benefit from these young milkweed seedlings for a while. Mary

I'm betting that you will be finding Monarchs consistently soon. We have been aware of OE on our Monarchs for some time now in Florida, but we still have plenty of healthy ones emerge and do well. I'm sure you know that you will be finding lots of little milkweed plants once the ones you have start to throw out seeds. It's always painful to see the caterpillars we have worked so hard to grow die by various means. For me, the worst is seeing them eaten by wasps. I think we have to be ready to accept the fact that many eggs will disappear and many caterpillars will be eaten or come out deformed. I think all the advice given above is excellent. We do what we can. The only cats I try to raise are those of the Eastern Black Swallowtail. I can see the eggs and cats easily on the fennel and notice when they disappear. Just last week I was watching six of them grow pretty large and then one day later they were all gone. Birds and wasps find them and then just keep coming back. I now have six in a cage that are doing well--somewhat surprising since I've not been very good at helping them in years past. We'll see... Keep us posted, Rhonda. Good luck with your new job. They will be getting a tigress.