Goodness!! 50??? I am having a hard time keeping up with the 18 I have, lol. (last 2 eggs hatched today) apparently, every single egg I found was also fertile, and they all seem to be thriving so far. I am so glad all of these eggs hatched at almost the same time, I think it will be easier since they will all be so close in age, and hopefully size. The other 8 cats I have, are at all different stages, and I have had to move/separate them so many times it is ridiculous, some of them seem to be bullies, lol. The largest one of the last bunch is now in a "habitat" by himself, because he would not stop picking on the smaller cats and taking their food, and they weren't that much smaller than him. I have one small one who bullies cats WAY larger than him, lol, I had to move him after I saw him slither up to one of the big cats and try to bite them, or at least that is what it looked like he was doing. I have figured out how to tell if I need to give them more food, they "wander" when they want new, or more leaves, or at least these do, because every time i have had one wander away from the food, if i put new food down, they come back. The largest one will start eating the leaves before I even set them down in his cage, lol, he bites them and starts tugging on them. I am hoping everything works out for all of them, and that they all keep eating and growing, so far so good though. And as far as the food situation, the lady who lives next door to my aunt, does have a safe host tree, yayy!! So I am going tomorrow to cut some more leaves for them, and my safe dwarf tree is getting new sprouts of leaves in several places, so they should be big enough to cut soon, so it all seems to be working out in their favor so far! I too am interested to see when these two that pupated decide to eclose. The 1st one pupated on sep 18, second one on sep 23, I was able to move them into the reptarium cage I bought without harming them or disturbing them, so I am not so worried about them eclosing when I am not home now that they are in the mesh cage. what have the temps been lately in your area? The high was 95 here today. Supposed to get cooler this weekend though. Was it you who said you had a GST chrysalis turn black before eclosing? I have been checking them for any signs of change, but they haven't changed one bit.

Just seeing one feels so good, doesn't it? Flowers are good for both nectar and insects (protein for feeding babies), so it's a good call. Lots less work, too. July seems to be when there are lots of them. I hope we all get lots of them then.

Good to here someone has activity! You of course have read of my troubles with the swallows and the fact that my blues are wasting time and doing nothing. 1 TRES nest completed, 1 almost complete. This time last year I had a completed BB nest and 5 eggs. This year, not one completed BB nest and no absolute claims for the boxes. Why are they being so slow???? It's not much of a wonder why they suffer competition problems...how did they not go extinct during the decline of the 1800's? I've lost plenty of female BBs and nest attempts. Although every season got better with the exception of this year. Ahh, Time to quit rambling! Good luck! Heck, you're lucky to have them nesting! Mine are just wasting time and boring me. -Tim-

If you're seeing an unhatched egg five days after the others have hatched, it's probably a good idea to remove it. I've never had problems monitoring a chickadee nest. Sometimes the parent birds sit in a nearby tree and scold me, but that's about it. I would worry that as the babies move around more, the egg would break and foul the nest. I would wait for the female to leave the nest and carefully remove the unhatched egg.