Raising Book Resources
Raising Hope for the 2024 Monarch Migration- Share Your Raise The Migration Results
Raise The Migration is an annual North American challenge to raise monarch butterflies to release for fall’s annual monarch migration. The time has come to share your 2024 experience and raise it forward…
The raising season is coming to an end, so we’d love to hear how many butterflies you released for fall’s annual 2024 monarch migration…and more importantly, what lessons you’ve learned through this amazing raising experience?
If you’ve still got some raising to do, raise on! But please post in the comment box at the bottom of this page after you’ve released your last butterfly.
Every year, I start Raise The Migration in July, but monarchs raised at that time aren’t actually migration generation butterflies…they’re the parents to that amazing generation of travelers.
There’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 milkweed the caterpillar eats. The first super-sized caterpillars start to form chrysalides around the first week of September in our northern region…
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 companionship…migratory 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 you’re interested in a step-by-step how to raise monarchs book (choose paperback or PDF download) please check out the monarch raising guide by clicking this butterfly photo:
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 past eight seasons:
2023- 89% Survival Rate
2022- 100% Survival Rate
2021- 86% Survival Rate
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 2024 Results
This seems to be a year of few monarchs for many, after a promising early start in May. Based on reports from the community, I have a couple of ideas on what has been negatively impacting the eastern population migration numbers in 2024:
- City mosquito spraying- these harmful chemicals pretty much destroy your entire garden ecosystem, including monarchs in all stages
- Excessive rains- paired with cooler temps this combo slows down metamorphosis and can also drown caterpillars that fall off plants.
- Late Migration?
On September 17th, 2024 there's more than a dozen migrators fluttering around our Minnesota garden. This is the most we've seen all season, so I'm hopeful this late summer weather, allows more butterflies to finish the life cycle and migrate.
For our lucky 7 this season...
Caterpillar Escapes
none 🥳
Unexplained Caterpillar Deaths
none 🥳
Caterpillar Diseases and Parasites?
none 🥳 We were lucky because we brought in two caterpillars this year and neither was parasitized by flies.
Accidental Deaths?
none 🥳
Chrysalis Problems
none 🥳
Butterfly Eclosure Issues
none 🥳
Final Results
Our totals are taken from all eggs that have successfully hatched in our care. We don't count eggs that were parasitized outside or monarchs brought in as caterpillars because they could have parasites too.
This year, we ended up with 7 monarchs...4 were unintentionally brought in after a wind storm knocked down a large stock of common milkweed. The other egg was accidentally brought in getting milkweed for the other 4. The final monarch caterpillars were brought in from our water feature swamp milkweed and a common milkweed growing through a crack in our deck.
So how many survived to reach butterhood?
The first female eclosed on Labor Day, the last male eclosed on a very sultry September 17th...87°F
0 accidental deaths
0 disease or parasite issues
0 unexplained deaths
6 healthy males
1 healthy female
100% survival rate (5 from egg, 2 from caterpillar)
Lessons Learned
We raised outdoors on our uncovered porch again, which I do not recommend because it adds dangerous factors that are out of your control including:
- extreme wind
- soaking rains
- cool night time temps (in northern regions this slows down metamorphosis)
- predator issues (some insects and animals can chew through cages, and stink bugs can harpoon caterpillars through mesh)
- pesticide drift (especially if neighbors or the city spray for mosquitoes)
To protect them from outdoors condition we:
- put the cage under pine tree branches to block rain
- put a clear tarp over the cage to bock rain, but let in more light (as opposed to a solid color tarp)
- put two pavers inside the cage so it wouldn't blow away
- put a flat rock on floral tube rack so it wouldn't blow over
You can easily expose monarchs to natural heat, light, and humidity (without extreme conditions) by raising them on a screened-in (or at least covered) porch and then you don't have to worry about taking extra precautions.
Migration Memories 2024
Two memories stand out during the 2024 migration season
1. Dueling hummingbirds (the OTHER migrators)- we typically have one hummingbird that claims our garden plants and feeder and challengers are chased off quickly.
This year's challenger would not be denied, so I've actually seen them feeding together in between car chase scenes...perhaps the garden is big enough for BOTH of them? 😅 Of course, getting them both on camera/video has proven more difficult.
2. Milkweed IN Water- last fall we left a milkweed container submerged in our water feature and this season, it came back, flowered, and was the milkweed plant I retrieved our final caterpillar from.
I typically don't bring in caterpillars but there were strong storms coming and our resident leopard frog was lurking below, which put our last caterpillar in double jeopardy...
Thankfully, we found the caterpillar before the frog did.
Unfortunately, Mr. (or Ms.?) frog did snatch a giant swallowtail butterfly from the lantana on the ledge of the water feature. To keep the feature from becoming a butterfly death trap, we moved a large mum to that ledge, and moved the butterfly-attracting lantana to our deck. Live and Learn 🦋🐸😱
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I hope you enjoyed reading about my Raise The Migration '24 results and lessons learned raising monarchs through the butterfly life cycle .
And now, I'd love to hear about your experience...
Share Your Results?! ✍️
Please share your results at the bottom of this page and let us know how many monarchs you released to help boost the struggling monarch population…remember 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 2024
115 comments
I live in Boone, North Carolina, and this is my third year raising monarchs. In 2022 and 2023, there were plenty of eggs/cats to collect and I released over 20 healthy butterflies each year. This year, however, despite looking high and low all over the area, I was only able to find three cats! Thankfully, all three were released as healthy butterflies, but the huge drop in numbers in one year is very concerning to me. It may not be too late to find others, but I have only seen two monarchs this summer (not counting the ones I released), so I don’t have much hope of finding any more at this late date. Has anyone else in the NC/TN/VA high country had similar disappointing numbers?
Woodbury, MN I’m still raising caterpillars – I have released over 360 Monarchs so far this summer. Since I’m still going with about 30 caterpillars in various in star stages, I just want to stress one thing that is very important. Keep a discard pile when you clean out your cages. Top it with fresh milkweed every day or more often if possible. I have found at least a dozen cats in the discard pile so far in the past 2 weeks. I have extremely good vision, but with all the aphids this year, it has been a challenge to spot some of the smallest larvae. I’m starting to clear away a lot of my older dying milkweed and that also goes into the discard pile – not straight out to the compost bin. Some reproductive butterflies laid eggs on those very late apparently, but I’m still bringing them in, in hopes of giving them their best shot at making the migration.
Sept. 7. Bryan,Tx. I have seen only one Monarch is my yard this last week. It has been hot and dry. I do have several kinds of milkweed plants. I checked and there are no caterpillars nor do I find any eggs. It seems the past couple of years few and fewer Monarchs seem to come through this area . I worked on the butterfly problem by giving programs and exhibits for years in the area. We have a wildscape yard. This year have had a wide rang of different kinds of butterflies and have plants for them just not Monarchs.
I successfully raised and released 22 this year. I lost 1 caterpiller & 1 chrysalis. Compared to last year I only & had 1. I am from Oxford ME7
Frances, I too am in Southern CA. Don’t beat yourself up because I also witnessed the black death deflation being rampant this year. Even the ones that I brought in as instar 1 cats had some difficulty with this phenomenon. I bring in all of my cats because I live on a golf course that is patrolled by skunks, possums, coyotes, bobcats, and other critters that would tear into my habitat. Not a single cat that I left out in the wild this year survived. I saw 3 chrysalides out there but all three turned into black goo. All other cats I saw just seemed to disappear. I have a plethora of praying mantis in my garden so I stock the loss up to this and my many lizards and of course tachinid fly. After witnessing this, this year I decided to bring in all cats that I found just in case they could survive and if they don’t, at least I can destroy the tachinid larvae to reduce the fly population somewhat. I would say that about 90% of those I brought in had the fly. Another 9% had the black death. I am now on my last 5 cats for the season. Since I am in CA I know they won’t make the big migration, but they are all quite small right now. Not sure why. I added to my milkweed supply this year with 7 plants in addition to my 20 year old tropical milkweed (don’t fret, I cut it down to 6 inches last fall to reduce infection). But maybe it’s just not enough to beef them up. Last year I named every single cat and noted it’s sex. This year I refrained from doing that since it is harder when they die when they have a name. Good thing because the death rate was quite high. I released over 30 healthy monarchs this year and have 1 that was born with 2 deformed left wings that I put in a separate habitat and am caring for till her last days. I did name her. I did learn that having a monarch nursery, (aka a plastic takeout bowl with a lid, lined with a paper towel and given a spritz of water with fresh leaves) helped my instar 1 and 2s survive much better rather than throwing them in with the ravenous fat cat wolves. I will do that again next year. I had 2 accidental cat deaths this year that I have not forgiven myself for. Apparently two of my little cats must have jumped ship as I brought their tubes into the kitchen to replace milkweed and clean off frass but I didn’t notice until I was vacuuming the kitchen floor. I realized what they were 1 caterpillar too late. Another larger one must have escaped also because it suffered a squish fate. Horrible. Lesson learned, eyes on the tubes as you carry them and count them before and after to account for all. However, the joy of watching my monarchs take their first sip of nectar from my butterfly bush and flutter up into the trees outweighs the death and sadness. I feel good knowing that those 30 survived to feel the breeze under their wings because of me.