Love it!

How funny! Well, they will use it, no matter the size. Maybe she was trying to be a good mom and provide her young with some nice tender food instead of the tougher stuff in lager pot! :o)

It sounds like you're overrun with cats, Mary - congratulations and welcome to the club!
I love it!
Hopefully, you can move the eggs or hatchlings onto some bigger parsley later. It seems to be an unsolvable problem. You get more cats than you can feed, so you get more host plants, and they just lay more and more eggs - you can never catch up!
You can't believe how many pipevine swallowtail cats I've had for the past few months. Also, gulf frit cats. The vines in my garden are covered with cats, and I've got still more in cages on the porch!
Keeps us busy and involved, though. :)
Sherry

Congrats on the eggs! Looks like you'll be busy.

I've hatched 6 BST chrysalis in the last week and have 4 more to go, as well as one cat. I don't know if the rest of the chrysalis will over-winter.

Awwwww. She had to start her Babies somewhere!

Betty

It is true, the more host plants you provide, the more egg activity it seems to generate but at least we all know we're helping God's little beauties in some small way. So much natural habitat was lost to the heat and drought this year, each little bit of help is welcomed.

Now I'm being inundated with Monarch eggs. Was out on the deck early AM and there were two Monarchs busy laying eggs on my dwindling supply of milkweed. I must have 50-60 Monarch cats inside and they are really making headway into the milkweed. I can't decide if they or the pipevine cats are the champion eaters! I have a backup food source of the Cynanchum laeve (Honeyvine) and need to get out today and use water spray to remove the aphids. It's not the best food source but in a pinch, the Monarchs will eat it. I once had a mama Monarch lay eggs on early spring growth of this little vine and I have fed it to the little cats. It wilts quickly when cut so I might try to place some cats on it, then cover it with something to protect them. Of course, the butterfly weed can also be used as a food source. I'm planting a lot more of that next year as mama Monarch's have laid eggs on it this year and the resulting cats look big, fat and happy. It has repeatedly bloomed, providing nectar all summer. My two year old butterfly weed is on it's third round of blooms. One of my Butterfly seedlings started mid May of this year is blooming! The blooms aren't big, but still, it really surprised me. They were so leggy, I pinched them back to about 6 inches a few weeks ago and they've put out new growth and on this one little plant, pretty little blooms!

I'm watching the maypop vines for little cats but so far, nothing but blooms there. The few little pipevine cats are growing fat and sassy, even discovered a few cats down on the little A. fimbriata.

For the dearth of butterfly activity for so much of the summer, we all seem to be busy now! :-) Yea ... hang in there, everyone. All we can do is the best we can do.

FYI: Cynanchum laeve - aka 'Honeyvine' milkweed
early spring growth

{{gwi:529540}}

~Mary