How to Prepare MILKWEED for Monarch EGGS 🌿❓🤔

Tips to get your milkweed ready for the monarch migration generation

July 13, 2025

Greetings Royal Raiser ,

Welcome to the official start of Raise the Migration 2025, where you'll learn our tried and true process for raising healthy monarch butterflies through all 4 stages of the butterfly life cycle.

But before you start raising, it all begins with...

Prepare MILKWEED for Monarchs❓

The past two years, have brought us ample rains and our garden is a glorious shade of green 💚

This has been slow season (so far) with monarch sightings, but I have seen a regular flow of monarchs in the garden. It’s hard to believe that even a decade ago, there’d be several monarchs floating around daily by now, but monarchs and other pollinators seem to be disappearing before our eyes. I hope we start to see more activity into August and before the migration.

On a positive note, all milkweed species (native and non) look primed to receive monarch eggs.

I’m focusing on about 10 plants for collecting eggs in the near future…6 potted tropical milkweed (in 2 pots) and four more peculiarly placed common milkweed growing through cracks in our deck. 🌿🤷🏽‍♂️

These plants are in great condition, so I’ll debug them to increase my odds of finding eggs. (more debugging info in the linked post below)

Besides the two aforementioned milkweeds, there’s plenty of other milkweed coming up around the yard and I’ll share more info about these plants when I search for eggs next week.

You don't need a ton of milkweed to support monarchs, but I recommend having a few mature plants (3 would be a good minimum) before starting your raising adventures...

Click the link below for some tips to make sure your milkweed is in prime condition to receive eggs and host migration generation monarchs in 2025:

How To Prepare Milkweed to Receive Monarch Eggs❓ « the 5th photo down the linked post shows our debugged milkweed container from last season )

🦋 MBL Shop Update 🦋

As I have mentioned in past newsletters, our raising supply shop is permanently closing this year, but I will remain here to serve you in other ways: newsletter, online courses, etc.

As for supplies for this season:

  • TALL baby cages (and all large cages) are sold out

  • There’s roughly 45 INVISImesh baby cubes and you can purchase those here:
     purchase a baby cube cage ⬅️

  • Don’t worry, I have listed other vendors with similar supplies and will always be testing out cages/accessories to see what the best options are raising forward

Check out all the supply list suggestions for RTM ‘25 here:

Coming Up Next? 🧐

This coming Wednesday, Raise the Migration will focus on what is still a problem-area for many...collecting and caring for tiny monarch eggs. I hope the solutions we discuss throughout this event will bring you more raising success this season...and beyond!

Until next time...

Tony your Butterfly Guide