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’m actually doing better this year. I released 2 early monarchs in May. Since then I have released 15 monarchs and have 4 more large caterpillars to go. Last year I only released 5 so I am pleased with the upward trend.
I keep the cage outside but under a large umbrella. I read that caterpillars grown in cages are not as resilient as others from nature so I leave the cage out through wind, rain and sun in New Jersey.
I hail from Sheboygan WI. It’s about 50 miles south of Green Bay on Lake Michigan. This is my 5th season as a monarch keeper. We see the 1st monarchs and eggs at the end of May each year. I found my last eggs this year on 8/24. I have about 50 Milkweed plants in my yard, but they are infested with spiders, ants, aphids and other sorts of malcontents. I only found about 6 eggs there this year, I think they get eaten faster than I can save them, so I expanded my search to the surrounding areas and found a couple spots that were good producers of eggs with less predators. Since I’ve been able to use everyone’s accumulated wisdom and kept the success rate up. I’ve released just over 100 this year with 12 left to complete the cycle. All have made the climb to the top of the cage, a couple still in the “J”. I had 259 releases 2 years ago and it almost killed me, keeping the cages clean and the little critters fed is a lot of work!!!
Every year my garage is changed into a nursery with a cage for eggs, another cage for middle sized and then the cage for the big boys. My tables are filled with cleaning tools, bowls, spray bottles, tweeters, magnifying glasses and small vac equipment to clean up the poop. I have learned the importance of a clean and uncontaminated environment. I also try to keep the cats I find already hatched separate from the rest. I did say I turned the garage into a nursery, no need to park there in the summer. Another thing I changed was that we had always taken the butterflies outside when they were ready (as soon as they can fly) and put them on flowers, that was until I found some of the birds were eyeing them as they got up the nerve to fly. Now we wait till I can toss them up and they fly away.
I had no disease rack the cages (black death) or those pesty larva string down this year, those two things break my heart.
It is always so sad when the season ends. It’s a long wait till spring and they appear again.
This year has been very disappointing as far as numbers of Monarchs released. In the past my numbers were always around 150 this year looks like it will be 51 counting all the chrysalis in waiting. I am, as you can imagine not happy, my neighbors insist on using pesticides and weed killers – as many times as I have called attention at our monthly meetings no one seems to care. How do you convince folks to be more compassionate? I do have a question though: a couple years ago (I am here in Michigan) I had 4 late bloomers that did not eclose until Oct 3 – a friend took them down to the Flordia/Gerogia border and released them – no worries there I believe. Now I have a 1st instar baby that probably wouldn’t come until that first week in October. I will be going to Kentucky on Oct 2 – will that be too late for that little one to make it to Mexico? As most of you feel as I do these are our babies and we want only the best for them. I do have good news though. Michigan has finally ended their contract with RoundUp and now will be planting milkweed instead of killing it. Some years ago we went to Lansing to make the Monarch our state insect with no results – they had a contract with RoundUp at the time and thought it would be a conflict interest. Thank God that has now ended. Thanks to all of you who are doing your best to save our flowers of the sky!
I’m in NE Wisconsin. By the end of June I had released 51, only 9 in July and so far for August 128. My daughter lives on the outskirts of town and has a tiny patch of swamp milkweed but always collects eggs for me. I have a huge patch of swamp and common and collect fewer than she does but I know several neighbors one street over we’re having their yards sprayed for mosquitos and Japanese beetles so that’s probably a contributing factor. I have 18 chrysalids still waiting to eclose. This may sound like a descent year for me but last year was over 300 and the year before that 400 so it’s still a downturn for me. June was very slow and finding eggs was hard compared to the year before where I found 60 on my swamp milkweed in one day! I’ve only had one butter that for whatever reason couldn’t fly and spent short life hanging out on garden plants. I did have one instance where four chrysalid’s died, turned brown and their contents liquefied. Not sure what happened there but the other chrysalid’s in the same enclosure were fine.
Like many others I had very few monarchs this year. I have been raising since 2007 and have never had anything like this. Found 12 eggs in mid May and only 7 hatched. But I found only 3 eggs in August. Last year I had 52 in August. Several years I raised over 200. In 2022 I only had 40 but this is much worse. A total of 10- absolutely unbelievable. It has been terribly hot this summer, maybe that is part of the reason. I didn’t see one single monarch in June or July, which has never happened before either. I live in central Indiana
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