More Monarch Ranching

I averted a near disaster last night. The dogs woke me up to go outside around midnight and when I walked into the kitchen to look out and see if any critters were at the ground feeding tray, I caught Miss Penny up on the counter trying to break into the monarch ranch. She had pushed the screen partially out of the lid to the inside of the box. I could barely get her away from there. I'm not sure what caused her to act this way, because she really hasn't paid any attention to it sitting on the counter since last week when I set everything up. Perhaps it's because the caterpillars are getting bigger now and she could hear them munching or crawling around in there. Or perhaps it's just because she's a cat and she can do whatever she wants!

Anyway, no damage was done and I was able to make the late-night repairs before heading back to dreamland.

Here are some photos of the progress.

Monarch Ranch I - population: 7

Big Guy & Little Guy

My largest caterpillar. I'm hoping he'll decide to pupate by the weekend.

I was telling my office mate about my monarch ranch and we decided that we should also have a monarch ranch at the workplace.

So this afternoon, I created Monarch Ranch II. I have some big glass jars that Dad gave me several years ago and I actually found them right away out in the garage. I added some pine shavings to the bottom and a stick, then out to the yard to try and find more caterpillars. I searched several of my milkweed patches and was able to only find one small caterpillar and a couple of eggs, but that's a good start, I think.

It's going to be fun to have these little guys in our office and hopefully we'll be able to raise a few more Monarch butterflies. I'll have to take a little walk around the prairie area at work again and see if I can find some more "stock" for this workplace ranch.