Butterflies

[jcop143]

Hi all,
New to this forum. I have planted milkweed and have gotten many caterpillars and some butterflies. Want to plant more. I am having trouble with things eating them, maybe toads.
I am looking for an enclosure habitat for them. I want to know if I get one and have plants in there will the caterpillars be able to get in or do I need to put them in there after the caterpillars have already gotten on them?

 

[Chuck]

Hi all,
New to this forum. I have planted milkweed and have gotten many caterpillars and some butterflies. Want to plant more. I am having trouble with things eating them, maybe toads.
I am looking for an enclosure habitat for them. I want to know if I get one and have plants in there will the caterpillars be able to get in or do I need to put them in there after the caterpillars have already gotten on them?

What is getting eaten? The milkweed plants or the caterpillars and butterflies? Usually caterpillars are too high up on the plant to get zapped by a toad, but then, caterpillars often spin a cocoon and entomb themselves or change into a chrysalis and disappear from sight. After all this work on the part of the caterpillar, he will, after a period of time, crawl out of the cocoon or chrysalis only to have changed his appearance into a butterfly or moth. But, we wonder, how did the caterpillar get there in the first place. He had to have come from somewhere. Maybe from underground? Maybe he flew in with a butterfly. Yep, that's what he did, he came with a butterfly, only he came as an egg, not a caterpillar, and that super smart butterfly laid that egg on precisely the favorite food of that future caterpillar, the milkweed plant.
You can, if you wish, put the plants into an enclosure of some kind but it won't do anything. If a toad wants in he will get in. They are great diggers.

 

[roadrunner]

Less than 10% of monarch eggs/caterpillars survive. The main culprits are ants and wasps and some birds. I've never used those coverings to protect them; I just get more host plants to help them, because there's some that say farming them can be a bad thing.

Are We Loving Monarchs to Death?

Are We Loving Monarchs to Death?

www.discovermagazine.com