Tee! Hee! Those milkweeds are pretty tough plants. They've probably been there a long time. I still probably would have dug up about 3 of them to move them closer to your backyard, so they could be watered regularly during the summer. Usually, there are enough roots in a med sized clump to take over when the long taproot is severed. Be very careful in transplanting young milkweed plants and seedlings. If that taproot is broken off, the plant is a goner. Tropical milkweed is not like that. I think that your cuttings will do very well with this cooler weather. I like to use the square Ziploc containers. Drill holes into the top of the container the size of the stem. Cut a square of water oasis about half the depth of the Ziploc container. Stick it into the container, fill with water, and let the Oasis soak up the water. Pour off the extra water. Don't want water coming up thru the holes, or the Cats could drown. The Oasis really helps to hold the stems up, as well as keeping the milkweed stems moist when it is so hot in the summer, and the water evaporates. Then, you can put your containers in your new Butterfly cage! Do you have room in your home? Several people here use the Florists water piks to put the milkweed stems in. It will work for small stems, but needs to be checked frequently to see if water needs to be added. I have stuck the water piks in a container of sand to stand them up. Some folks use small vases with the tops covered with saran wrap, and holes poked for the stems. Won't be long, and Amber's going to have some Monarch cats!!! Keep us posted.

Egg to caterpillar is about four days...depending upon the temperature outside. :) See my blog for more info. Here is a link that might be useful: tdogmom's Monarch blog

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!