I grow a lot of milkweed but was not seeing any monarchs this year. My sister ordered me some monarch caterpillar babies online and I ordered these trays and floral tubes so when they were large enough I could move them to a large mesh enclosure. I find that some caterpillars prefer to climb to their milkweed, whereas others are fine with eating milkweed leaves off of the floor of the enclosure. These floral tubes and trays made it very easy to keep the leaves fresh longer and also give the caterpillars who seemed to prefer climbing the ability to eat their leaves from an elevated position. I released a dozen monarchs a couple weeks later and I have since found 2 eggs on my milkweed plants which have hatched and are now instar 2's. We have also found three instar 5's in the yard looking for a place to J hang. I believe that at least one of the monarchs we released came returned to help populate our yard with more monarch caterpillars so this has been a successful adventure and I will continue to hopefully be able to bring only wild caterpillars inside without having to order babies online next season. But if I do need to order some, I will. But my goal is to get to a time when we finally have enough of a population so that I am only bringing in monarch eggs and babies cats from our yard where we grow not only about 40 milkweed plants but cone flowers, zinnias, sunflowers and many more that the butterflies love. Much of the credit goes to the excellent supplies I ordered from Monarch Butterly Life. Thank you!