Raise your own monarch butterflies

From miraculous metamorphosis to magical migration

Assignment: Your adventure, should you choose to accept it, is to raise wild monarch butterflies. It can be as easy as planting some common milkweed. This is similar to our backyard adventure Create your own ecosystem, but here we are focusing on a butterfly ecosystem.

PS. The monarch migration is a phenomenon unique to North America. If you live somewhere else, you could try raising a different kind of butterfly.

Inspiration

When I visited the winter home of the monarch butterflies in Mexico, I fell in love with them. They are one of the most amazing creatures on Earth. It takes them four to five generations to migrate from Canada to Mexico.

Can you imagine that? How does a butterfly born in Wisconsin, for example, even know which direction to fly? How does it find the same forest in Mexico that its great-great-grandparents visited?

Monarch butterflies are full of mysteries for you to explore. And what better way to explore the mysteries than to watch your own caterpillars make the miraculous transformation into a butterfly, and release them into the sky from your own hand!

Two ways to get started

This is not a step-by-step how-to guide. You can find detailed instructions online or at your local library. But here are two simple ways to begin:

1. Plant Milkweed and Let Nature Lead

The easiest way to start is to plant milkweed seeds and let nature take its course.

Milkweed grows easily, and it’s the only thing monarch caterpillars eat. Once it matures, monarch butterflies will find it and lay tiny eggs on the leaves. Soon, you may spot striped caterpillars munching away. They leave big holes in the leaves as they grow.

When they are ready, the caterpillars will wander off to form a chrysalis in a safe place. If you also plant nectar flowers, you might see them reappear as adult butterflies resting in your garden and fueling up before their long journey south.

2. Protect Caterpillars in a Terrarium

Another option is to gently move eggs or caterpillars into a terrarium to protect them from predators like wasps.

This method takes more care. You’ll need to provide fresh milkweed leaves every day. When the caterpillar forms a chrysalis, make sure there is enough space for the butterfly to fully open and dry its wings after it emerges.

Then comes the best part: release day.

What you will discover

When you raise monarchs, you’ll learn about:

• Life cycles
• Patience
• Care and responsibility
• Instinct and navigation
• The power of small actions (like planting one seed)

Each butterfly I raise is truly a small miracle. Now it’s your turn. Plant a seed. Watch closely. Ask big questions. And when your butterfly takes flight, you may discover that something inside you, like the feeling of a small miracle, has grown wings, too.

That’s all you need to know to get started. Good luck!

Scott’s butterfly journey

I visited the butterflies at the beginning of their journey in Canada (left) and the end in Mexico (right). And of course, along the way, they visited my milkweed garden in Ohio. I’m proud to have had hundreds of visitors. And each year, a couple of dozen new butterflies were born and raised and launched.

Below is a short video of a monarch caterpillar eating a milkweed leaf. It reminds me of how I eat corn on the cob. This is a full-grown caterpillar having a last meal before it forms a chrysalis. In a mere 2 weeks, it will become a butterfly and begin its journey to Mexico to hibernate for the winter. I raised about a dozen butterflies from my garden this year.