Some photos of my setup

Hi Michaela!

How frustrating for you. I'm sorry.

I am a total newbie who is raising Monarch, Gulf Fritillary, and Eastern Giant Swallowtail butterflies (I had a Black Swallowtail, but it didn't make it). This is my first year being successful at raising Monarchs. Several years ago, a family gave me lots of Monarch caterpillars. I didn't know anything about OE and all of them eclosed very deformed. Now I know it had to be OE.

This year I went out and bought a 3-gallon Tropical Milkweed and have subsequently bought a few more as the caterpillar population has exploded! I have had a couple "cats" that started looking not so good, but they were just getting ready to transform into the next instar stage and once they shed their skin they looked great. All made their chrysalis, but one never emerged and so I "euthanized" it.

Here is my set-up before cleaning this morning. There are 6 chrysalides and 9 fat cats. My house (north of Houston, where it's in the high 90s outside) is 78 inside and 60% humidity. It sounds like there is either a disease or parasite...I move caterpillars into this set-up when they are just a day or two from making their chrysalis. When the are really small, I keep them in a big glass vase. I load the environments with milkweed. I have been spotted out front in my PJs with scissors in hand cutting fresh milkweed to feed the gang (I'm sure people think I am nuts). I clean the frass off the blue lid when I swap out the plants, about every other day.

You might consider enclosing them in an organza bag outside....contained and protected.

This batch will bring my total, so far this year, to 30+ raised.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Maybe a dumb question but how do you test the humidity in your house?

I tried to find a disease that fit the situation I ran into but I couldn't find anything. And I brought them in as eggs which I thought gave them better odds?

Sounds like my cleaning routine is about the same as yours. I try to keep it clean of frass and I never felt like it was dirty.

I was going to try to keep them in my mudroom but it gets so hot in there I thought it would bake them. I am worried about trying to keep them outside. We get so much rain and high winds I feel like their enclosure would blow away. I put together one of those greenhouses and weighed it down with bricks and one day came home to it in pieces all over the place and it was even protected up against our shed.

I appreciate you sharing your experiences with me. I hope I can find a way to keep them inside. :/

My in-house thermometer has a hydrometer (?) too, which gives % humidity.

Go to http://www.yourorganzabag.com and buy some cheap organza bags...I move them around as the cats grow and eat the food supply on the branch that I cover. It's a thought. You tie the bags on so they won't go anywhere!!

Here's the link for my bagged cats...well, it was peaches at the time, but same principal.

Oh good to know I will look for one of those!

Oh those are interesting. I will take a look at those! Thank you very much!