[LordHog]

The wife started trying raise Monarch butterflies this year. We bought a great deal of milkweed plants, about 25 pots. Every day she would tend to the milkweed then brings in any caterpillar or larva she finds. Throughout the last seven months the number one issue our Monarch population faced was the Tachinid flies.

I don't know the exact number of larva eggs and caterpillars she brought into the house, but an educated guess would be around 250. The vast majority of the Monarch population was decimated by the Tachinid flies. I would say about 85% of them died as a result of the flies. Another cause we witness is when a caterpillar would expel green liquid then die. Still not sure the cause of them. Most info I could find pointed to toxins, like weed killer. We would wash the leaves after first reading about the toxins, but the caterpillars would still succumb.

In the end, I think only about 20-25 were well enough to be released. It has been very disheartening to see so many of them die.