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Showing posts from September, 2019

How to Raise Monarch Butterflies

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We raised monarch butterflies this summer.   First, we gather leaves with monarch eggs on them from the milkweed plants that grow at a nearby pond. Note: You have to find a place where milkweed grows naturally.  We know what the plants look like, and we know they grow near our pond year after year.  If you find a milkweed plant, you can turn the leaves over and the eggs are tiny, white dots on the backside.   We bring the leaves with eggs on them home and put them on a plastic tray or plate and keep the leaves fresh by wrapping their steams in wet paper towels until the caterpillars hatch and begin to eat and grow. The caterpillars are so very small and so very hungry, they don't often leave the leaves on the plate. Once they begin to grow larger, the caterpillars need a lot of fresh milkweed, so we start bringing home whole plants of milkweed every other day, keeping the plants in bottles of water.   We keep the caterpillars from crawling down