Love this info. A co-worker of mine who is an avid outdoorsmen, brought in several last year in mason jars that we can watched transform from caterpillar, to the final beautiful monarch. Which we released at work. When my children were younger, we took them to Paul Smith College in the Saranacs, NY to there nature preserve. They had a butterfly house there. They told us that we had arrived at the right moment, the monarchs were just about to hatch. We stood in awe, as the opend the cocoon, unfolded their wings, pumped them up and tried them out. I have been hooked ever since. I have a dozen or so in my back yard every evening. I wintersowed butterfly weed this past winter, transplanted in my garden and found 6 cats out there had munched the poor plant to nothing. We brought 2 in the house, my 19 year old daughter wanted to raise one to release it and one for my outdoorsmen co-worker. He has to forest around in fields for hours trying to find his. He could not believe that we had so many in out back yard. I had an extra butterfly weed plant that I brought to him for his back yard. He was so excited, and still is having a hard time grasping that they eat butterfly weed. He is of the school that they only can be found on the old fashioned milkweed. Everybody at work will walk by and check on the jar, and stop what they are doing to wander outside to watch in amazement when it finds its wings and flies away. Everyone should experience this with their children

I agree. Small spiders that don't weave a web are common garden predators - they attack directly. I've found that what you read about monarch cats being protected by the poisons they get from milkweed isn't true - they get eaten, too. Several years ago I had sleeved some monarchs to protect them against predators, because the tropical milkweed they were eating (which is full of the white "glue") wouldn't stay fresh in a water pick in a cage - I've since learned that monarchs eat so fast you can just put the leaves in the cage with them, and they'll eat it all before it can droop. While I was moving the sleeve to another area of the plant, a wasp flew up into the sleeve right by my hand and killed the caterpillar - I couldn't believe it! Sherry

beccalmt- I've moved MANY MANY molting monarchs and never lost one from it. I've lost a couple black swallowtails that way though, so I only handle them when absolutely necessary. In raising monarchs over 30 years I have never has a disease outbreak. Part of it is my location. In Minnesota all the milkweed dies to the ground each season so most of the OE spores are killed. These are the things I do to care for my monarchs...maybe something will strike a chord with somebody: I usually give them leaves twice a day...once early, once before sundown Each time I rinse the leaves in the sink in cold water(have never used any sort of cleaning solution) I also empty the cage of frass before adding new leaves and then rinse it out with warm water...then DRY it! I handle my monarchs a lot, taking them off old leaves and placing them on the new. If they are 1-3 days old I tear off the section of leaf they're on and place it on a new leaf. If using my large caterpillar castle, I take a warm rag and clean off the floor each time I change leaves. (since I can't rinse it out in the sink...the material dries fast) I usually try to limit my cage to 10 cats....I would separate them if there were signs of an outbreak. Minrose, have you had disease problems in Minnesota before? What is your routine? Sorry to hear some of you are having problems. I hope you all have some healthy monarchs soon! Tony

Yes! This thread is encouraging! Hopefully they're on the rebound; even slowly, rebound is rebound. I grew more swamp milkweed from seed this year, not sure if it attracted any monarchs, as I didn't check the plants regularly, but certainly can only help, not hurt. The land in my area has a lot of common milkweed growing, and I've noticed strays popping up in my pasture and beds. Rouge: I *adore* "Mystic Spires" salvia!! Hands down it out-blooms any other annual I've had, mine were still blooming into late October, and pollinators go ga-ga over it. Unfortunately it is hard to find in my neck of the woods, only one nursery carries it that I'm aware of, and when they're gone they're gone for the season. Well, now that I have a fancy-dancy light cart, I can keep mother plants growing for cuttings over the winter - HA!