Raising Monarch Butterflies in the House

I have never seen a large monarch caterpillar in my swamp milkweed garden. One or another predator gets them early; sometimes when they are still an egg. In a tiny effort to help the numbers grow, I raise them inside away from most dangers.

Monarch females lay eggs on the underside of a swamp milkweed leaf. Periodically I examine these sites either by carefully turning over a leaf or using a mirror. When I use the mirror, I go out at dusk with a miner's head lamp so that the sky brightness does not overwhelm my view.

When I find a stem with several eggs I cut the entire stem (not just a leaf) and place it in a vase olive jar on my kitchen windowsill. This is the preferred method rather than bringing in just a leaf since an individual leaf will dry out in the 5 days the egg develops. When I do bring in just a leaf I watch carefully for hatching and then place the dry leaf on a fresh one.

The first thing a caterpillar does upon hatching is eat its protein-rich egg shell. Just by chance, I captured a new caterpillar doing this recently.

But I digress...

After the eggs hatch in the vase, I may let the caterpillars grow for a few days until the droppings are making a mess on our kitchen counter. They then go into a plastic shoe box were I continually add fresh leaves.

My use of plastic shoe boxes is imperfect because of the lack of ventilation. To overcome this shortcoming I open the boxes a few times during the day to get a change of air and release moisture.
Perhaps I will install screens next year.

When the poop gets heavy in the bottom, I carefully place the caterpillars (by lifting the leaves they are on) into a clean box and add more leaves as required.

To help with cleanliness, I have been keeping no more than 4 caterpillars in each box when they get beyond the tiny stage.

If someone is not home during the day, be sure there are plenty of leaves in the box before going to work.

So you just add leaves and clean out the boxes when they need it and wait. You may see them crawl up the side of the box and molt.

When the caterpillars get fully grown, they will go to the top of the box and attach themselves to the top, They will hang in a "J" form a a day or so before their final molt into a pupa.

Pupation goes very fast when it happens. A clue will be when the "antennae' hang haphazardly. Immediately before pupation the caterpillar will squirm and writhe.