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by Tony Gomez

2 years ago

Raising Book Resources

Raising Hope for the 2021 Monarch Migration- Raise The Migration Results


Share Your Raise The Migration 2021 Experience in a Comment Below

2 years ago

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By Tony Gomez

Raise the Migration 2021- Share Your Experience Raising Monarch Butterflies

by Tony Gomez

2 years ago

Raise The Migration is an annual North American challenge to raise monarch butterflies to release for fallโ€™s annual monarch migration. The time has come to share your 2021 experience and raise it forwardโ€ฆ

Raise the Migration 2021- Share Your Experience Raising Monarch Butterflies

The raising season is coming to an end, so weโ€™d love to hear how many butterflies you released for fallโ€™s annual 2021 monarch migrationโ€ฆand more importantly, what lessons youโ€™ve learned through this amazing raising experience?

If youโ€™ve still got some raising to do, raise on! But please post in the comment box at the bottom of this page after youโ€™ve released your last butterfly.

Every year, I start Raise The Migration in July, but monarchs raised at that time arenโ€™t actually migration generation butterfliesโ€ฆtheyโ€™re the parents to that amazing generation of travelers.

Thereโ€™s no way to tell whether butterflies will mate or migrate, but one telltale sign of a migration generation butterfly is its size, which is dependent on how much the caterpillar eats. The first super-sized caterpillars start to form chrysalides around the first week of September in our northern regionโ€ฆ

In the garden, you can tell non-migratory butterflies by their worn out wings. Non-migratory males are also more aggressive, chasing off potential competition while seeking out female companionshipโ€ฆmigratory monarchs are in sexual diapause and only interested in stocking up on nectar for the long journey ahead.

So how did our Raise The Migration Monarchs fare this season and what lessons did we learn raising forward?

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If youโ€™re interested in a step-by-step guide digital guide with free updates (before each monarch season begins in spring) please check out the monarch raising guide by clicking this butterfly photo:

Raising Monarch Butterflies Book

For anyone who purchases the guide (or any other item) from Monarch Butterfly Life, you will be invited to our closed facebook group where you can discuss raising monarchs with other raisers and post your photos.

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Here are Raise the Migration results from the pastย eight seasons:

2020- 82% survival rate

2019- 81% survival rate

2018- 93% survival rate

2017- 100% survival rate

2016- 96% survial rate

2015- 96% survival rate

2014- 90% survival rate

2013- 100% survival rate

As you can see from the results, this raising system is consistently producing healthy monarchs to help support the struggling monarch population.


Raise The Migration 2021 Results

I released 15 healthy monarchs (14 females and 1 male) from July 29th to August 16th with a 100% survival rate. I am fairly certain all of these butterfliesย wereย parents to the migration generation.ย 

The seven monarchs we raised after that,ย were counted as our official Raise The Migration monarchs for 2021...


Caterpillar Escapes

By keeping monarch eggs and baby caterpillars in sealed food containers, and raising larger caterpillars in the mesh cages, we never lose caterpillars.ย 

I think the closest we have come was two years ago when I forgot to close a cage door and found a caterpillar crawling on top of the cage. ๐Ÿ› ๐Ÿ˜ฑ


Unexplained Caterpillar Deaths

We didn't have any unexplained monarch deaths in 2021.


Caterpillar Diseases and Parasites?

I'm happy to report no disease issues in 2021. All of our raise the migration participants were brought in as eggs so no issues with tachinid flies...a couple eggs were parasitized by trichogramma wasps,ย and we discarded those eggs when they darkened and never hatched.ย 


Accidental Deaths?

We experienced one accidental (and completely preventable) accidental death. See the Butterfly Eclosure section below for more details...


Chrysalis Problems

No chrysalis issues to report in 2021...

Community member Jude R. recently used the microfiber method to rehang one of her fallen chrysalides:

Rehang Chrysalis on Microfiber- Raise the Migration 21 Results


Jude reports: There was zero silk and I wasn't sure what to do. Your tip worked and just in time. I was a little worried the bfly's feet would get stuck in the microfiber, but it had zero problems.
ย 
ย 

Butterfly Eclosures

We had oneย eclosure disaster this year. An early morning butterfly (emerged from chrysalis before 7am) fell from our kitchen overhang on to the floor.

Sheย lost a lot of fluids from her abdomen when this happened.ย Herย wings recovered 'somewhat' when I hung her from inside a mesh cage, but she was injured badly from the fall on to the wood floor, which is about a 7 foot drop.ย 

Starting in 2022, we will no longer rehang chrysalides on our overhang. It's much safer to rehang them inside the cageย where they can crawl up a mesh wall after falling a much shorter distance.ย 

safe way to rehang monarch chrysalis


Final Results

Our totals are from all eggs that have successfully hatched. We don't count eggs that were parasitized outside or monarchs brought in as caterpillarsย because they could have parasites too.

Sevenย monarch butterflies emerged from their chrysalides between August 29th and October 5th:ย 

1ย accidental death (butterfly fall)

0ย disease or parasite issues

0ย unexplained deaths

4ย healthy males

2ย healthy females

86% survival rate


Lessons Learned?

Chrysalides should always be kept in a cage or somewhere where the butterfly has a chance to climb to safety if it falls after it emerges. In my experience butterflies rarely fall, but it can happen.ย 


Migration Memory 2021

I came across these mating monarchs in our Minnesota garden on September 19th when it was an unseasonable 90ยฐ:

Mating Minnesota Monarchs September


Before 2021, I had never seenย mating past the first week of September in our region.ย 

I hope you enjoyed reading about my Raise The Migration '21 results and lessons learned raising monarchs through the butterfly life cycle .

And now, I'd love to hear about your experience...
ย 

Share Your Results?! โœ๏ธ

Please share your results below by letting us know how many monarchs you released to help boost the struggling monarch populationโ€ฆremember to include your location.

More importantly, please share the most valuable lesson(s) you learned about raising monarch butterflies, that you believe can help others raising forward.

Thank you for helping to Raise the Migration in 2021

338 comments


  • Hi, Everyone! We had a great year for monarchs here in Michiganโ€™s Upper Peninsula. Plenty of them arrived and laid eggs (unlike last year), from which we raised and released about 105 male and 116 female butterflies. About a quarter of those were the big migrators. It seems to me that the switch to the migratory generation was a little earlier this year. I released our last butterflies on September 6.

    This year we stuck to our rule of ONLY raising from eggs or newly hatched caterpillars, and our losses were very small โ€“ only two didnโ€™t make it to butterhood. We are lucky to have plenty of milkweed free of herbicides and pesticides. We put big bouquets of milkweed (carefully rinsed and checked for caterpillar-eating monsters) in each of our three big cubes and use a fourth cube for a tiny cat nursery (babies on leaves in plastic tubs) and chrysalis nursery. As big cats populate the ceiling with chrysalises to a reasonable capacity in one of the other cubes, we rotate the babies and bouquets, so thereโ€™s always one thatโ€™s a nursery.

    All in all, it was a very good monarch year here. There have been wandering into the garden for a couple of weeks.
    :0) Nancy

    Nancy McDonald on

  • This is my first year and we successfully raised 2 females and 1 male. Unfortunately we had to euthanize 1 female due to OE

    Vicki Hitzemann on

  • I raised to release 84 so this was a poor year for me. Also, at the start a friend gave me 5 eggs and tiny catties which she put on the cut milkweed tucked in a damp paper towel in a plastic container. I left them in this even though I know I always get mold this way. Sure enough, they all died a couple days later. Made me ill. The milkweed was so dry this year. It helped to collect it only from gardens and from near water.

    Jean Brooks on

  • This was a very light year here in Northern New Jersey. Iโ€™ve only released two Monarchs and still have one in chrysalis. Two years ago I released 20 butterflies. Also found two chrysalis outside near the milkweed bed. This year I brought in as many eggs as I could find but for some reason unknown to me, only a few survived. In previous years Iโ€™ve only brought in small cats. The first female to lay eggs deposited them on the seed pods rather than under the leaves. Could that have made a difference?? Hoping for a better year in โ€˜22.

    Pan on

  • I have successfully raised and released 91 Monarchs in 2021, my first year to raise caterpillars. I have one butterfly to release tomorrow and 4 left in chrysalis. The total will be 96. I will have tagged 89 of those. I didnโ€™t have tags for the first 7 that were released in June. Also, itโ€™s been fun to see some of them come back to the flowers in my garden over the last few weeks, as well as seeing quite a few passing through on their way to Mexico just in the last 10 days. :))

    Julia Hedges on

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