Thanks Sherry, It has been a crazy day for me. I have two Monarchs that have already formed a chrysalis and there was one fat one in the butterfly cage, so I took the top off to go to get more Leaves for the third guy. I just threw the leaf in with the others, thinking he was on the bottom of one of the leaves and put the top back on. Several hours later I was checking on him and could not find him anywhere in the cage. I looked everywhere in the room; the cats are all in my computer room. Finally after several hours I found him on my potted Christmas Cactus. I put him back in the cage, and he headed for the top to pupate. Sure glad I finally found him!!! I now am raising 9 Monarch Cats, all different sizes, and 7 BST that hatched on Thursday. Betty

he nibbled just a tiny bit ( you can barely see the little missing pieces on the edges of leaf) and now he is just sitting on the leaf. he looks skinny, and weak, like his skin looks all baggy and wrinkly. but he did molt successfully, because I saw his old skin and head capsule. So strange, he was fine before the molt, and now it seems like he doesn't "like" orange leaves anymore and is looking for something else. I truly think something is wrong with his mouthparts, since he appears to at least try to nibble, then it is like he gets frustrated and starts pacing around again, his behavior is almost exactly like that of cats that are looking for a place to pupate. and he is about 3 weeks old, i think, the other two hatchlings from his "group" died when they were like two of three days old, one hardly ate at all, the other was eating normally and when I went to change his leaf and picked it up, he rolled off, i waited a while to see if he startedmoving again, but he died on the leaf. I guess it is survival of the fittest so to speak, even when they are indoors. I used to keep them separated according to size, but i decided to keep all of the cats in their own individual containers after I had one cat die when trying to molt, I am almost positive that the cat he shared a container with, ate the leaf he was attached to and knocked him off before he molted, even though he had his own new leaf, because he was fine when i checked them before i went to bed that night, and when i woke up he was lying on the floor of container trapped in his old skin, and the other cat was on the leaf eating it, they had shared a container since they hatched, but apparently this particular cat didn't like to share, he is one of the few I have that still "stinks" me when I change his leaf and clean his container, he is super aggressive, most of them seem to be used to me and don't get defensive when I clean and give new leaves, but this one almost EVERY time, sticks his little horns out at me, I dread fooling with his container because i cannot stand that smell, lol. I lost one more cat due to an unsuccessful molt, it was a first instar, not sure what happened but he was all tangled up in his old skin. But the first one I lost due to molting was on his 3rd molt, and completely healthy, so the only thing I could think of that may have happened was that the other cat forced him off of the leaf, but idk, I felt so sorry for him, all that work and time, and he had made it through the more delicate stages and survived. Hopefully this one will perk up, I thought about putting him outside on the tree, it is nice and sunny today, and letting him wander around to see if he finds a leaf that suits him, I have some tulle fabric I can tie around the tree to keep predators from getting him, does that sound like a good idea? thanks everyone!!

Standard - I have not seen a hummingbird molting ever before. Thanks for posting the picture and the link to the article. Sarah - That is neat that you have captured a picture of one molting. It is so fun to watch them preen. Ruth

You can save the seeds by drying them out even if they did freeze. Last year one of my nicest pumpkin plants grew all by itself, in the spot in the garden where I had chucked some pumpkin scraps. It got as cold as -20 last winter so those seeds were about as frozen as they come. Yet in the spring they sprouted right up. The only thing is that unless your pumpkin was carefully pollinated, your seeds may not be pure, and the pumpkins that grow may look nothing like you expect.