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10 Beautiful Monarch Butterflies hatched yesterday.

The kids were ecstatic with another butterfly emerging every 30 minutes or so.

Every year it never ceases to amaze me and thrill the kids to watch little tiny caterpillars turn into such graceful butterflies.

This is when you know they’re ready to hatch.  Their pale green cocoons turn dark and you can see the patterns of their wings through it.  Once they hatch the clear cocoon is all that’s left.

Yesterday we even got to watch one emerge and stretch his wings and body, which is rare to see because they usually emerge and stretch in about 15 minutes and we always miss it.

The best part is that after they dry their wings and practice flapping the kids are able to take them on their finger and watch them fly away.

We had two more hatch this morning, and 17 more cocoons left to hatch, so we’ll be sure to post more photos.

And if you live here in southeastern Pennsylvania you may still be able to find a large caterpillar or two on some milkweed plants, but it almost the end of their season here.

And for more of our posts about monarch butterflies you can look here and here.

An update on the monarch caterpillars that we introduced you to the other day. 

We consider these fascinating creatures our babies for a few weeks each summer. 

Five are currently in cocoons.  Six are hanging in their little ‘J’ shape ready to turn into cocoons, and the rest are happily eating all the milkweed I can find.

The two guys pictured at the top were the first two to go into cocoons a few days ago.

It takes them about 10 days to emerge as beautiful monarch butterflies, so these two should be out by late next week. 

We’re so excited.   

We’ll share plenty of pictures when they hatch.

It’s that time of year again, when the monarch butterflies arrive here in southeastern Pennsylvania and lay their tiny white eggs on the undersides of milkweed plant leaves and flutter around our yard.

We find the pretty striped caterpillars as they hatch out of the eggs and bring them indoors to raise them till they grow into big caterpillars.  A few days later they turn into cocoons and then hatch into gorgeous butterflies. 

To my husband’s dismay we bring in lots and lots of them because the birds and some other insects find them to be a tasty treat, and left outside they often get eaten very quickly.   It’s not uncommon for us to raise and hatch several dozen butterflies each summer, and have 3 seperate boxes full of them.

In case you want to raise some of your own.  This is our system. (I’ve been doing this for over 30 years when I first read about monarchs in a Ranger Rick magazine and found a caterpillar in the garden.)   

We cut a milkweed plant or two for the caterpillars and put the plants in a jar of water to preserve the plant as long as posssible.  Generally we have to add a fresh plant every 2 or 3 days.

We put the plants in a tall box and put a lid made from a wood frame and mesh (like from a window screen) to keep the caterpillars inside.   The screen acts as a super place for the caterpillars to hang and form their cocoons.

Monarch caterpillars eat only milkweed plants and will grow to about 1 1 /2 inches before going into their cocoon. 

We have two jars with milkweed plants and about 24 caterpillars so far this year.

I will post some picture as soon as a few go into their cocoons.

Monarch caterpillars can be found late July through early September in our area in Southeastern, Pennsylvania however in different areas of the country it will be different times of the year.  To find out more about Monarch butterflies you can look here.