All work and no play gets old really fast so I took up raising Monarch butterflies as a little hobby. These are just amazing creatures the way the change from caterpillar butterfly.  Anyone can raise these beautiful creatures or help them out a little on their migration by planting plants they need to nourish them and keep them going.  The best place to learn about Monarch butterflies is at http://www.monarchwatch.org/

Page 1-The Monarch Egg

Below are photos I have taken of how I raised my Monarchs.  There are several different methods of doing it but this is just how I did it.  I plan on building a Monarch structure to raise them on my deck in the future so I don’t have to have them in the house.

Above is a Monarch egg on the underside of a milkweed leaf (magnified.)

Above gives you an idea of how small the eggs are.  You’ll almost always find them on the underneath side of the milkweed leaf.

Above shows the egg almost ready to hatch.  You’ll see a dark pinhead-sized spot (the caterpillar’s head) just before they hatch.

You’ll notice the oval shape of the egg has turned upright in a watermelon shape (standing up on its end.)  You can see this with a magnifying glass.

Above you can kind of see the stripes running running down the sides of the egg especially over the dark head.

To see what the newly hatched Monarchs look like please follow the links to the next phase of the Monarch’s development.

To Page 2-The Monarch Caterpillar
To Page 3- The Monarch Chrysalis
To Page 4-The Monarch Emerges