Only you know how busy you are, so you need to decide for yourself if you can take on the challenge of raising them. But, if you have a park or roadside patch of milkweed, you can gather leaves around town and bring them home to feed your little ones. Just keep a bucket half-filled with water in your car, and hop out where ever you see healthy-appearing milkweed and snip off the top half of a few plants. I take it home, rinse in the sink and feed. Any extra can be kept in a plastic sandwich bag in the fridge for a number of days. Though mine always got eaten more quickly than it took to go bad. I think you would enjoy seeing them grow up and fly off to Mexico. Good luck.

Martha

Can I switch them from tropical to swamp? That is probably the best bet around here for decent leaves this time of year, though I haven't looked lately. There may be some butterfly weed around too that is in decent condition.

How many cats can I feed on one stalk of milkweed?
Liz

You can switch them; try offering both at the same time so as to "wean" them.

Your caterpillars can still make it to Mexico. I've had them flying here in northern IL in October.

My monarchs have been getting a variety of milkweed this year based on which family member gathers the leaves. None of the caterpillars have complained.

Reminder that common milkweed leaves do just fine sitting in Ziploc bags in the fridge. Find a source and stock up.

How many you can feed depends on what stage they are at. When they are just hatched, they can last for several days on leaf. But, once they are 4th and 5th instars, they will eat several large leaves each day. I keep the small ones in Tupperware containers without any air holes. That helps keep the leaves fresh.

Martha

I just took a drive around and scouted out the local milkweed supply. It's not looking great. The butterfly weed has all gone to seed and is starting to turn yellow. There are some green leaves left on the common milkweed, but boy are they tough. I haven't had the chance to check the best location for swamp milkweed, so maybe things are better there. It looks like raising all of them would be difficult. For now, I brought in 13 eggs on the tropical milkweed leaves and put them in a sealed plastic container. If I can't find a good supply of food somewhere, I think I will leave it at that. Better to raise 13 and bring them to adulthood than to try to raise them all and have them all starve. But I will do my best. 42 would be an awful lot for me to raise!
Liz

Excellent compromise.