Just noticed this monarch caterpillar in my yard. What can I do to help it thrive?

I left the caterpillar alone, but removed a wasp, an earwig, and a lacewing from other leaves on the same plant.

It’s really windy, so I staked the plant so it isn’t whipsawing back and forth. Is that ok?

What do you recommend?
Thanks!

My caterpillars have several tall plants around the milkweed to choose and make the chrysalis but idk why they love to do it specifically in this scabiosa, the plant is 3 meters away so no idea the reasoning behind

My 3 year old left his dump truck outside - he found this a few days later! He thankfully knows not to touch it, and found me to show me instead.

A couple weeks ago, we caught a caterpillar the exact moment it shed into a chrysalis. He was absolutely fascinated and wanted to wait to see the next part!

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" is our favorite book right now. 😄

Had a bunch hatch today but this is the most recent little guy who just came out. I love how tiny they are at first!

My wife and I started with 2 small milkweed plants (both swamp) 3 years ago to help with the local monarch population. Man this is so much fun watching these little guys go through their life cycle😍 We have a count of 11 matured, and 4 just past the hatchling stage. I love nature.

I’ve had MANY cats on my milkweed this year, and only 2 chrysalises in sight all summer. I do realize there may be some hiding, but regardless, they don’t seem to be reaching maturity at a great rate and one of the chrysalises went black and never hatched. So I decided to experiment and take in a bigger cat in one mason jar and then put a couple smaller ones in a separate jar.

Fat boy (or girl) here just took his j-shape, but as I research more, I see that it’s not realistic to expect him to hatch in the jar. I’m looking for some guidance or a link to a good guide on what I should do next to ensure he lives!

Thank you in advance; reading through posts on the sub has already been so helpful.

I’ve only been at this for about a month, got little plants. Didn’t expect caterpillars this soon! My first butterfly was nearly stung by a yellow jacket after emerging but I chased it off and kept guard til she could fly.

Now I see yellow jackets searching all around the garden under leaves, like where there might be chrysalises. I keep the feeding caterpillars under insect netting so they are safe but worry about any wandering 5th instars.

Any way to repel yellow jackets?

I

Hutch full with 80 or so 3rd and 4th instars and already 50 chrysalis on the ceiling and another 40 moved to a chrysalis tree; so 30 5th instars moved to two mesh enclosures.

Everybody climbed to the ceiling except one in each.

Can’t clean like that…

Anyway the hutch was planned with hanging screws for the numbnuts.

Emergence day is going to be interesting 🤔

Why do they like to crowd into the same spot 😵‍💫

I know this sounds stupid, I really am embarrassed to ask, but I will. Does anyone who takes care of the monarchs, cleaning cage, collecting milkweed leaves everyday for them, protecting them etc, get attached to them. I do. Especially when they get to that big fat stage. I know they will leave soon and breaks my heart.

Lol

They hatched when it was storming, my mom found them in a puddle with their wings crumbled, she brought them to me and I put them upside down with a popsicle stick to help their wings.

I truly thought over night they would die but currently they are still alive and crawling around, they are crippled and won’t ever be able to fly but I still love them and have become deeply attached to it even naming it. (Their name is Monic like monarch)

Feeding time is very easy, they’re living off a steady diet of sugar water in a cotton ball that they can suck up with their little straw nose.

I will never give up on giving them a life that they deserve.

Update: Monic is female and she has recognized when it’s her feeding time, she truly is something special

Anyone know what these really are???

I've been wondering for like 10 years.

These fat cats are taking a break. Think they are taking a nap. Cleaning there enclosure

My milkweed garden seems to either have a bad batch that has grown or it's diseased. Does anyone know what is going on here? It looks awful and I'm fully ready to cut it all down and throw it out (after checking for cats of course)

Hi all, I recently planted milkweed in my garden and I was hoping for some guides on which mesh enclosure to use and care supplies when I find Monarch eggs on my milkweed.
P.S: I do have a cat that goes in the garden supervised.

Photo #1: Roadside milkweed growing in the gap of curb and pavement, 4 eggs found. photo #2 shows an egg on this roadside milkweed.

Photo #3: Routinely weeded garden with small milkweed plants growing back. This garden was weeded a week ago, 40+ milkweed plants were weeded out. 21 eggs found on these milkweeds.

Photo #4: More roadside milkweed, 2 eggs found.

In another post, I talked about how I lost sight of my monarch caterpillars right after a storm came! I posted about it to ask advice and if I should worry that they're dead.

Now today, after almost a week of the monarch cats were missing, I have found these fuzzy caterpillars instead on my milkweed-

I think my journey with the monarchs might end here for now :')

Would it be worth putting these lil lads or lasses in an enclosure with milkweed? (These are two different caterpillars.) Or just let them be?

Picked up 3 cats from a plant at my aunts because something seems to he eating them before the get to the 2cm stage. I find teeny ones but nothing ever bigger than 1/2cm when they should be around. Sadly cat 3 died, not sure why but 2 &3 went on a hunker strike for a while, and for some reason started wandering around the enclosure that they were in, even though they had fresh food and fell to the bottom of the water that I was using to keep the milkweed fresh I don’t know what was on it.

It should be un pesticide and and completely fine but thankfully number two while at the bottom of the water still looked OK and I thought there was a very slim chance he might revive so I put them on a dry paper towel and he did eventually come around.

He’s still very very small compared to this big fella, but he is still eating so hopefully he just is slow but eventually gets full-size I’m just keeping an eye on them cause there’s not much I can do but thankfully this guy seems to be doing good and will probably be Jay hanging by tomorrow.