If you're raising Monarch butterflies for a school, camp or just at home, THIS is the way to do it. For years I raised my Monarchs inside in a glass jar. Then I built this butterfly cupboard to hang on the side of my house and it's spectacular.
The thing about raising Monarch butterflies is they're very much a gateway bug. First you're raising Monarchs, then you get bees and before you know it you're deep into ant farms and worm composting. So be warned. If you start raising Monarchs, it isn't going to end there. Consider this fair warning.
Also of note; once you raise a Monarch butterfly there is a 100% chance that you'll force the experience on others (in what you think is an enthusiastic manner, but they see as maniacal).
If you don't know how to raise a Monarch or would love to know how to do it, it's pretty simple. I have an entire series of posts that walks you through how to do it and what each stage of the Monarch metamorphosis. Start here to learn all about how to raise a Monarch from egg to butterfly.
Last week I wrote a blog post explaining why I'm changing my Monarch raising practice a little bit. From here on in I'll be raising them entirely outdoors instead of indoors in a variety of glass vases scattered around my kitchen. To keep everyone in one place, I built a Monarch house to hang on the side of my house. Babies will go in the bottom of the enclosure and older, bigger caterpillars that are ready to chrysalis will go in the top.
Here's how to build your very own butterfly conservatory.
Build a Butterfly Enclosure
Build A Butterfly Enclosure.
A simple butterfly enclosure you can hang on the side of your house, garage, shed or fence.
Materials
- Window Screening - 24" x
- ¼" birch Plywood - 2' x 4' panel
- 1x2 lumber - cedar, (2, 8' lengths)
- Strapping - Pick it up for free from around lumberyard
- Latch
- Hinges - 2, 2" hinges
- 2" finishing nails
- Large stapler - with ⅜th staples, and ½" staples
Tools
- Drill
- drill bit (that's slightly larger than your flower vials)
- Compressor with 2" nailer and stapler (optional instead of using large stapler and finishing nails)
Instructions
Cut your 1x2s to length. - Frame
7" x (4)
18" x (4)
28" x (4)
Cut your strapping to length. - Door
17" x (2)
20" x (2)
24.75" x (2)
27.75 x (2)
Cut your plywood to size
20 wide by 30 long (for back of enclosure)
18 x 6.5 (for shelves)
BUILDING
- Using a compression nailer or screws build the frame of the enclosure with all of your 1x2 pieces of wood as you see in the photo. Use a square to make sure everything is as square as possible.
- Stand your frame upright and place your final two 1x2 pieces in place, recessing them back a bit to allow room for the thickness of your door (which is 2 pieces of strapping laid on top of one another). Once your frame is completely built double check your measurements for your door. (sometimes even if we try REALLY hard, we don't build things square. If the frame isn't square the size of the door might need to be adjusted a bit)
- Build the door by laying down the 20" and 24.75" of strapping in a rectangle on a flat surface. Butt them close to each other. Lay window screening over top of the first layer of strapping and tack it down with a stapler fitted with ⅜th" staples. Lay down the 17" and 27.75" strapping so the edges overlap the first layer of strapping. This will help make it stronger.
- From the wrong side, staple through both the frames and screening with ½" staples, making sure to keep everything square and corners butted up tight together. Trim excess screening with a razor.
- Attach the door to the frame with 2 hinges.
- Once your door is on cut more window screening and staple it all around the inside of the frame so there's NOwhere for a tiny caterpillar to escape. Measure and cut strapping to cover the stapled areas and attach. Do NOT put strapping on the very bottom of the enclosure, it will be covered later with a floor.
- Measure and cut strapping 4, 6.5" lengths of strapping to act as shelf supports. Lay down one of your 6.5" x 18" pieces of plywood as the enclosure floor, and one for the roof. Staple into place or use a 1" finishing nail.
- **You should need to cut off anywhere from .5" - 1" of the length of it (the 18") for it to fit. The amount you cut off will depend on how square your enclosure is.**
- Staple or nail the 6.5" strapping right above the floor, and again around 12" up from the bottom of the enclosure. These will act as shelf supports
- Using a drill bit that's slightly larger than your flower vials drill 5 holes into a scrap piece of wood. I had extra plywood so I used that, but you'll have used up all of your plywood from your 2'x4' piece so just use any wood you have. Reset the wood on your lower shelf support. Place your last remaining plywood shelf on the supports that are 12" up from the bottom
- Double check that your door swings freely and add some ¼" weather stripping to the edge of the frame to make it extra caterpillar escape proof
- Now all that's left is to attach the back to the enclosure, the latch and hooks at the back for hanging.
You're done!
Notes
Keeping your butterflies separated is important so parasites and disease (like OE) can't transfer between populations.
So keep your butterfly enclosure for housing your larger caterpillars that are about to form a chrysalis.
Keep the enclosure cleaned out of frass every day and periodically spray the enclosure with a weak solution of bleach. (do NOT do this when there are caterpillars, butterflies or chrysalises in it.
The caterpillars are housed on the East side of my house getting morning sun, but shielded from the hottest afternoon sun and weather.
I took inspiration for my butterfly house from Monarch raiser and all-around doer of stuff, Deanna from Homestead & Chill. You can see her butterfly enclosure at the bottom of this post on her blog.
I made my butterfly house entirely out of scrap wood (leftover cuttings from when I repaired and refinished my antique pine floor) and you can too but keep in mind that using wonky wood can lead to a wonky butterfly abode that's much more difficult to get square.
Also, I've given directions for 1x2s in the plan, but you can use 2x2s as well. It'll just make your enclosure a bit heavier and bulkier. Don't forget to adjust the measurements if you decide to go with 2x2s.
So far I've chosen to leave my shelves as raw wood whereas Deanna has covered hers with vinyl for easy cleanup. Monarchs poop a lot you see. Plus they're vulnerable to disease so you need to clean their enclosure. I'm counting on the natural antimicrobial properties of wood to do their thing. If I find cleanup too difficult or notice disease spreading I'll just stick on some vinyl floor tile or shelf liner.
Update: At the end of the season I found I was having problems with progressively worse cases of disease. It was either Black Death or OE which you can learn about here. Both are relatively common around here. So next year I'm going to add some laminate to this butterfly house and use bleach for cleaning it in between batches of butterflies.
To fancy the house up a bit I've added some solid brass corners to the door, used a brass latch and switched out the hinges you see in the photos for 2 larger, brass ones. (I was trying to use only things I already owned to make this but the 3 tiny hinges weren't doing their job well.)
The best part about this is neighbours walking past can see the process as well. They'll see my sign, wonder about it then as they round the corner of my house, they can see me feeding the Monarchs, the chrysalises as they hang and the Monarchs as they emerge.
I no longer have to explain to everyone how magical raising Monarchs is. They'll be able to see it for themselves. And if they don't happen to see it I shall tackle them, sit on them, hog tie them and then point everything out to them.
Because I'm "enthusiastic".
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Thank you for the Monarch butterfly raising inspiration! My first Monarch emerged a few days ago and now I am watching one “mature” chrysalis that turned black last night, hopefully to emerge this morning. I also learned a lot about all the stages from a kid’s book by Carol Pasternak. Similar to another comment above, I had to take my babies with me to the cottage, to keep the caterpillars fed and in case the chrysalis’ opened while I was away from home. So much fun and so exciting to release a beautiful Monarch.
I know this articles is a couple years old, however, wanted to reach out with a question! I haven’t built one of these but am considering it! Do you think if you actually layered them, little caterpillars on top, bigger caterpillars in the middle, and then hanging chrysalis on the bottom, there would be less potential for OE? My understanding is that OE comes from spores that butterflies drip when the emerge from their chrysalis. If that is the case, could having them be on the bottom result in less potential OE spores dropping on caterpillars below them if they are at the top? I know there is a wooden layer in between however, just wondering if they aren’t extremely fitted then could spores still be getting through?
my husband made me an enclosure with wood that's bigger, but now seeing this i really like yours better. Ours have a wood top and the first 2 chrysalis have turned black. Could it be the wood? How much light do they need to transform to butterfly? We had to move ours under out deck as the rains were flooding the enclosure . I like the idea these can attach to the house itself as our property slopes .
Hi Debbie. The chrysalis should turn black. They'll do that the day/evening before they emerge as a butterfly! But the chrysalis isn't actual black, it instead turns clear and you can see the black of the butterfly wings underneath. IF however the chrysalises have turned black earlier than they should have or if the black is spotty you could have OE - a deadly butterfly disease :/ If it is OE then you need to clean the enclosure with a diluted bleach solution. You can try again, but if it continues to happen the best thing you can do is stop raising the monarchs and cut down any milkweed around you (because it may also have OE spores on it) and hope the regrowth of milkweed is free of disease. ~ karen!
Can I paint or stain my free standing butterfly house inside and out ..
Hi Marilyn! I don't know the effects of paint on butterflies well enough to be able to give you a definitive answer, but I would *think* as long as you're using a low VOC paint like Benjamin Moore's Natura and you let it dry and cure completely it should be fine. ~ karen!
How long does the milkweed last when it's in water? We're going on vacation next week, and I have a caterpillar-sitter lined up, but if I can bring enough milkweed with us, I'll bring the caterpillars too. I found them as caterpillars, so I don't know for sure how old they are, but I expect they'll go into chrysalis sometime next week.
I raised my monarchs in a screened enclosure on my porch last summer after reading about the study but had some problems with tachinid flies. I’m not sure how big these flies are, but wonder if they are small enough to fit through the screen mesh. Have you experienced these horrible flies, and if so, do you have any suggestions? I’m leary about trying outdoors again this year.
Hi. Can you tell me how you clean and disinfect the wooden frame? I have a wooden enclosure but recently the caterpillars are getting black death and what chrysalides there show signs of it. Someone an expert in raising monarchs said it’s the wood.
HI Ruth. Use a spray mixture of bleach and water. One part bleach to 19 parts water. Spraying the floor is the most important part. You can also line the bottom of the cage with something like stick down vinyl tiles because those will be easier to thoroughly clean. Finally, cleaning up the poop out of the cage as often as possible will help. Sorry about your black death. It's awful. :/ ~ karen!
Thanks for this amazing article! If you're ready to have attractive designs on your house, you can rely on Cherry Hill Deck Builders to make things done efficiently.
Fabulous ..... simply fabulous!! But then again, I knew it would be! Thank you, Karen, from a condo owner unable to hang anything on her balcony.
The 2-3% survival rate made me feel a little better after I neglected to put my egg laden milkweed in water. Pretty sure that was the reason none of the eggs hatched. boo me.
Very cool! How many do you think you can house in there at one time?
Important to note this latest article if you are considering raising monarchs in captivity...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/monarch-butterflies-captivity-research-1.5189550
Hi Cathi. Yup, I discuss that rticle in the post I wrote on Friday and linked to. I also explain that the study was of a *very small group of Monarchs* from one single factory farming monarch facility. There's plenty of evidence from Monarch Watch that Monarchs raised and tagged by Canadians and others around North America do indeed make it to Mexico. Taking that into consideration and the fact that only 2-3% of Monarchs make it to adulthood in the wild, I still believe it's a good idea to raise them. :) ~ karen!
Very cool! I knew it would be.
Becky
From a fellow Monarch enthusiast..... yup I've had great success forcing my 'addiction' on others and yup....I recently watched a painted turtle laying eggs in my veggie garden and actually googled how to capture and keep the eggs in captivity. Ant farms, here I come!
Oh Karen that's so pretty. It looks like what I've seen at the botanical garden. We raise monarchs using a screened box for shipping honey bees. It used to belong to my grandpa.
Karen it seems you have encouraged a whole community of butterfly protectors. Good for you! Love the idea of putting this outside to enlighten others to the possibilities. You're a great enlightener, instructor, creator, cheerleader, and person. Can you run for President? Please!
Great butterfly enclosure but AWESOME posture.
I have mine in net butterfly enclosures that fold up at the end of the season. It’s so easy to get carried away. I now have 18 eggs waiting to hatch and 26 little caterpillars. The fourth butterfly will emerge soon.
I love the set up for the plants! I was using a short glass with a rubber glove over it, then cut small holes to hold the plant. But over time, the glove stretches out. I'm going to give your plastic ware a try! Thanks!
This is AMAZING! Do you have to position out of the evening sun, morning sun or half moon rising in the star of Aquarius, (I'm an Aquarian, not that I believe in that stuff). I'm sure you would have mentioned the best place to put it, because you are thorough like that but just wanted to triple check.
As always, love your blog!
Hi Cindy! The best place to put it is where it's going to be protected from the hottest sun of the day and driving rains and wind. For me that's the S/E side of the house. :) ~ karen!
I just released my third monarch! It was so exciting and a little emotional too! My daughter wants to give it a try now! I’m going to ask my husband to make this for me. We were away last week in Sauble beach and I lugged them up there so I wouldn’t miss them emerging ..needless to say it didn’t happen so back home they came ! The most well travelled chrysalisessss...?..ever! Lol.
I actually got my next door neighbour to babysit when I went on vacation. He told me they had been very well behaved! None hatched, they waited for me to come home.
Thank you. Hubby does better when he can see what I'm talking about. It's the yin/yang thing. My ADD mind comes up with a plan but I'm not good with all the tools. He's great with the tools, but not as visualizing the project. Early on in this 45 yr marriage, we almost approached divorce while building a kit shed. Weve finaly got the hang of it now. Lol