Off and on for a couple of years, we’ve raised monarch butterflies from eggs to first flight.
It’s really cool to see.
There’s something satisfying and heartwarming about seeing a monarch that you raised from a tiny egg finally crawl out of its chrysalis, dry out its wings and fly away.
We just got some eggs into the house a couple of days ago, spotted by my wife on leaves of a single stalk of milkweed in our yard, and two of the three hatched last night. Here are some shots of one that I took with a macro lens attachment on my phone:
To put it in perspective, this guy is about 2mm long. Yet in coming days and weeks, he’ll grow a ton, along with getting the distinct monarch orange, white and black colouring.
They also start to become more cannibalistic, unfortunately, which means we’ll soon need to separate the caterpillars onto their own milkweed stalks so they can munch and grow independently.
I’m looking forward to raising a whole new batch this summer.
Updates and more photos as it all happens.