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

There is a milkweed beetle that will eat a milkweed plant like that. It looks like a giant lady bug. I unintentionally introduced them into my garden one year on a tray of purchased milkweed seedlings. At first, I thought they were just very big lady bugs until I began to see the damage on the milkweed and began looking for the culprit. They are good at hiding under leaves, in litter or mulch on the ground and they are fast; will drop immediately to the soil when they feel threatened. It took me two years to pretty much get rid of them. This beetle will eat your milkweed if left to their own devices. I can't tell by your photo how big the plant stem is but if it is a small milkweed, they can do that kind of damage very quickly. However, you mention damage on other plants, too. I'm not certain but I 'think' this beetle only consumes milkweed. Sorry but this is the only photo I have of adult(s) When inmature, their back is a putty gray or dirty white color and even at that stage, can do a lot damage. Mary

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. :)

Thanks for the reply but no, I know it's not tachinid flies. Whenever we have a caterpillar that's been attacked by a tachinid fly, a string hangs down from the caterpillar or pupa, the fly larva crawls down the string, goes under the paper towel in the bottom of the container, and then within a short time we find the reddish-brown tachinid fly pupa in the bottom of the container under the paper towel. I've been raising Monarchs for 14 seasons and this is the first time I've had this problem, whatever it is. I wasn't really expecting a solution from anyone but was wondering if someone on here ever had this problem with the Monarchs before, that little "flies" would fly out of the container and there'd be dead cats inside the container. I originally thought that this was some kind of a disease being passed around from one cat to another, but then when my daughter said she saw some kind of insects fly out of the containers, that made me suspicious that they were the cause of this huge die-off. It's very disturbing. Even though I don't like the containers not having air flow, the only thing I can think of doing besides disinfecting the containers is putting the solid lids on the tops of the containers instead of having screen for bugs to possibly get inside, even though I never knew before that that's possible.