oh dear. Monarch cats need lots of leaves so I doubt you could get enough plants mailed to you to feed more than one or two little cats and the shipping would be very expensive. How sad for your little daughter.

While tropical milkweed grows quickly, it would require about 8 weeks to get seedlings to the stage where they would produce enough material to feed little cats.

You don't say where you're located but if in Florida or a warm weather area, you might find a local gardener in your community who is raising milkweed. I'd check with your local Master Gardener chapter to see if they could help you locate such a person.

Mary

Since you are in Kansas (?), I would check with Monarch Watch and see if they have any plants available. My milkweed is just popping up. This is not an all season plant except in Florida and California.

This is going to seem like a stupid question but I am confused about your butterfly kit. Most of the "kits" that I have seen available on the market contain Painted Lady caterpillars, and food for them is included inside the kit. I've not seen any kit which contains Monarchs. When you say "they just hatched out" what do you mean exactly? Caterpillars? Butterflies? I think that we need to understand about exactly what you have there in order to be able to really help you. :o) Angie

I don't know what zone you're in but here in zone 6 no nurseries would have milkweed this early in the year as it would freeze outside. Maybe if you're really lucky some local greenhouse is raising some milkweed. Monarch caterpillars need to eat milkweed to grow to the adult stage (butterflies); without it they will die. It sounds like whoever gave the kit to your daughter put the cart before the horse in purchasing eggs/caterpillars without milkweed. People should never buy eggs or caterpillars unless they know that they have or can absolutely obtain food for them. I also think it was irresponsible of the place that sold the kit if they didn't explain about the milkweed. So you're absolutely sure then that they're Monarchs and not some other kind of caterpillar? Just wanting to make sure because purchasing milkweed won't do you any good unless they're Monarch cats and not Painted Lady cats or some other kind that are sometimes sold in kits.

If they already hatched out, they should have food to eat right now and I don't know how you'd get milkweed soon enough that they won't die unless someone locally has it or if someone can overnight ship some to you. Even so, I don't know if it would be soon enough; I honestly don't know how many hours a Monarch caterpillar/larva can live without eating. I'd never have the nerve to starve one just to find out. It's sad if they all end up dying, so I hope that you can find some plants. I wish I could help you out but what I have doesn't amount to much this early in the year; if it would be in a few months, it would be a different story.

I just checked on Monarch Watch and their plants are on a back order status and could take up to a month to be shipped, so that won't help you. I looked on another website and put in a fake order to see how much the milkweed would end up costing. It would be $10 for the plant plus $8 shipping, which I doubt if it would feed more than one or two cats. Overnight would cost you $35 on top of that yet. I doubt if you'd want to spend $53 to feed a couple of caterpillars. I've included a link to a page that lists some online sites that sell actual milkweed plants. I think most online place sell only milkweed seeds and not the plants. Scroll down near the bottom to get to those links if you really want to check into buying some online. Otherwise, I'd check local green houses. I assume that you live in Kansas, so I doubt if any nurseries or big box stores would have something like milkweed this early since they usually wait to sell things when they can actually be planted outside; green houses might have them though. If you can't find any at a decent price online that can ship overnight or find any at a local place, then the caterpillars will starve and I guess it's a sad lesson learned. I really hope that you can find some somewhere. It's just really not a great time of the year though. I'd at least try to find some though; it just might be your/their lucky day. Good luck.
Cathy

Here is a link that might be useful: Links for milkweed plants---scroll down on page

One thing that I'm confused about is the fact that your daughter received this kit as a present for Christmas and that the caterpillars have just now hatched out?? Monarch caterpillars take about 10-15 days to hatch out, so I'd think that they'd have hatched out in January. It just really bothers me that 1. a place would sell a kit without food (my understanding is that a kit INCLUDES the food; without the food, it's just eggs/caterpillars and not a kit; 2. that places would even sell "kits" in December unless they knew that the person buying the "kit" lives in some place like Florida where the butterflies would stand a chance outside in the winter (even then, it would probably depend on what part of the state). Maybe I'm just too conscientious and not business oriented.

I'd like to know where you bought your kit. Are you sure it's for Monarchs?

Sorry that I was not more clear with my post. The kit that she got was for painted lady. The company shipped after March 1 and they just hatched into butterflys. As it is snowing here, I did not want to release them into the cold and have them die. I called several greenhouses and finally spoke with the zoo keeper at the local zoo. She suggested she keep them. My understanding is that for them to lay eggs, milk weed must be present. Thanks for all of the input!

Painted Lady Caterpillars eat Thistle, Mallow, Hollyhock and related plants.

They don't eat milkweed.

I'm sure others know more host plants from their personal experiences.

If you are still dealing with the issue though, we may already be too late.

I hope you were able to find help, Tony