What does my monark butterfly eat ?
The adult butterfly eats nectar from flowers. They also do not live very long and do poorly in captivity, so I agree with others here that you should release it. However, if for some reason you cannot do that, you can feed it sugar water (1 part sugar to 3 parts water, same as for hummingbirds). The best way to feed a butterfly is to soak a piece of cotton in the sugar solution, then put the cotton in the cage in a small dish (a jar lid will do.) The butterfly will smell the sweetness and suck with its proboscis (tongue). If it is a caterpillar, it only eats leaves from the milkweed family: Common Milkweed, Butterfly Weed, and Aesclapia are some common Milkweed species they like. The leaves must be kept fresh — simply putting leaves in the bottom of a jar will not do. To keep them fresh, you need to have the stems in water but also avoid having the caterpillar fall in and drown. An east way to do this is to put some water in a pop-top pop can and a stem with leaves attached into the h
