Pulled all these cats off of my swamp milkweed that had been stripped by them. I moved them to my other convenient swamp milkweed in a nearby bed! Will they make it?
edit: I am asking if the caterpillars will survive the move. I know the milkweeds will be just fine! Should have phrased this post better.
by yesdarling
35 Comments
Most likely! Definitely has been an issue for me, especially when I’ve had to get rid of patches due to soil contamination. I would double or triple down on the planting for next year to keep up with the lunch rush, if you can!
Before I knew any better, I bought monarch caterpillars that were shipped by mail. All of them survived the interstate journey and took to my milkweed just fine. Yours should easily withstand a trip across the yard!
I wish I had this problem.
Why is everyone being so snarky?
Y’all, OP is worried there wasn’t enough food for the cats, not that his plant wouldn’t recover. Y’all read way too much into OP trying to be a bro for the cats.
No, mine are disappearing, went from 4 to 1 baby…. 😢
They’re large. They’ll eat whatever they can, and pupate. No need to move them now.
My daughter just texted me to tell me that her and her partner had to do this today. I have tons a of milkweed!! Bring ‘em ovah!!
I apologize for my sarcastic comment based on misunderstanding your post. Thank you, OP, for looking after the monarchs under your care 🙏🏻.
My lawn guy cut down a big milkweed plant… I searched the plant and found a cat curled up on it and transferred him to another plant. He started munching again and did just fine. 🙂
I’ve moved them to a plant with something left to eat and they just started chowing down on the new one.
Sorry people are so freaking snarky. That’s an impressive number of caterpillars
You are so lucky
Dang! It would be my wildest dream. I think mine are too heavily preyed upon by wasps or something else. But I sure an glad others are finding abundance.
I saw one on my dill and I was afraid to move it to my milkweed where it would have more food. The dill was dying off. I might be less afraid to now.
I just got a bunch of milkweed seeds in the mail through my state’s pollinator program! Very excited to up my pollinator patch game!
https://preview.redd.it/3kzxf02idfof1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=29a26bf6d8468789676c38aafa7b2bea83904390
Been moving them around the last couple weeks, they’re voracious!! We’ve had a ton here this year, feels good to see.
I wish!
I had to move some clearwing caterpillars because they stripped a nannyberry bush. Eventually, they stripped all my nannyberry bushes, so I had to wish them the best and hope they were ready to go underground
I just did this with about 8 of them after they stripped all mine, transferred to my neighbors! They did great.
Thought the pillars were spelling something out
I’ve had great success with transfers. I’ve even asked for milkweed on Nextdoor. My neighbors have always been really kind in sharing extra unsprayed milkweed.
Yes, they should make it just fine, as long as they were not injured during removal.
They should start munching down again almost immediately.
Yup I’ve had to do this before, they munched through SO much. All made it to butterfly healthy!
But what about the aphids? What did you do to them?!
# [#]aphidjustice
Two weeks ago I had 15 caterpillars over 20 first year swamp milkweed plants. I transferred 8 to mature swamp milkweed plants and 4 to butterfly milkweed. They all seemed to do fine. The ones I left nibbled a few plants down to the stalks so I’m glad I transferred what I did. I’m in SE TN and they seem to prefer common and swamp milkweed around here.
I resigned two plants to them this season. Apparently, they love parsley.
They’ll move between plants on their own if they’re somewhat close
they can pupate on any plant. Just move em.
If you put out sliced butternut squash at the base of the stripped plants, they’ll eat that and make chrysales. I put it on plates, and I think I had to help some of them to find it.
For future “crops,” here is an article [describing how to harvest and spread your milkweed seeds.](https://xerces.org/blog/how-to-collect-seeds-from-milkweed-pod-and-plan)
They are pretty good at doing that on their own, but they should be just fine. Thank you for caring for them
I am fortunate to have enough milkweed for all the monarch caterpillars this year. I have been actively relocating swallowtail cats that wiped out the parsley, and am relieved to see them munching away on the Rita graveolens (not native) that they are now on.
https://preview.redd.it/0iris574ufof1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=48e2e839af30e599f9e924377184a3eff918791d
They’ll be fine. You must have a desirable yard!
Milkweed is on my regular rotation in planting. I get so many butterflies I feel like a Disney Princess when I’m in my yard.
But my MIL has had to do this 😭
Monarch caterpillar don’t eat parsley