Caterpillar Time!

Saturday (the 28th), before my race, I was out doing some gardening for a few hours. (Maybe not the best way to spend pre-race time, but oh well.) I was DELIGHTED when a Monarch butterfly fluttered into the garden amongst my milkweed!! I hurried into the house to get my camera, then came back out in hopes that she would lay some eggs.

Just hangin' out...

It didn't take long- almost immediately I saw the tell-tale reverse abdominal crunch move that indicates that a butterfly is laying an egg!

"UUUNNNnnnnnnnngh!"
Tucking her abdomen under the leaf to deposit an egg

I followed her around for a while until I no longer saw her in the garden. I have milkweed plants in 4 different places in our yard and found eggs on most of the plants.

Egg!

I prepared an empty plastic cookie container (reduce, reuse, recycle, right??) for the eggs by washing it thoroughly and putting a paper towel in the bottom. I punched holes in the lid from the inside out (so the jagged edges are pointing up and out of the container, and the caterpillars won't rub on those sharp edges if they climb up!) with a wine bottle opener. Then I went outside and collected the eggs (10 total) by pinching off the entire leaf, but you can also just tear off a piece of the leaf with the egg attached.

Lastly I took an old knee-high pantyhose and cut off the top, then cut a slit down the side so I could stretch it out into a square shape. I laid this on top of the open container and stretched it out, then closed the lid over it, securing it in place.
Those caterpillar babies are going to be about the size of a small ant, and can easily fit through the holes in the container!

Then I waited.
I didn't have to wait long.

On day 3 (July 30th), TWO eggs hatched!

The first hatchling caterpillar baby! Meet Eddie Murphy.

A little video I made of the first few moments of Eddie Murphy's life...


Eddie hatched first, in the afternoon, and Charlie hatched later in the evening. For the rest of the night I was pretty excited.

The 2nd hatchling caterpillar baby! Meet Charlie Murphy.

I recently watched Eddie Murphy on "Inside the Actor's Studio" (he is GREAT by the way) and the names just sort of... happened.

When I woke up this morning (day 4), I couldn't wait to check on them!

You can imagine how happy I was this afternoon when I looked in the container and saw......

FOUR CATERPILLAR BABIES!!! The two born today don't have names yet.

Check out the little holes in the leaves, and all of that poop. They are already eating and pooping lots. After I took this photo, I cleaned out the poop. Kind of glad I didn't clean it before the photo was taken though, just because it is amazing how much they can poop in just a couple of hours!

Next I plan to separate these four into a different container and wait for the rest of the eggs to hatch. I don't think I'll be waiting long, cause.......

See how dark that egg is? That means it's almost ready to hatch. A couple of the eggs look like this now, so they will probably hatch some time this evening!

(You can click on any pictures in this post to enlarge them.)

This is a wonderful website that I keep going back to visit- tons of useful information if you're curious about raising caterpillars, too!!
http://www.mymonarchguide.com/2007/05/raising-caterpillars.html

Random notes:
I have since read that for the first few days, you don't actually need air holes in the container. Can anyone confirm this?
I've also seen pictures where people have taken thumbtacks (or other objects that make a very tiny hole) and poked airholes in the container with that. Are holes that tiny sufficient to get the caterpillars enough air? You'd need a lot of holes, but then you probably wouldn't need the stocking or other barrier.

Any questions or advice for me? Please leave a comment and let me know!