Every summer the monarchs come to her yard and lay their eggs and she collects them and raises them in a couple of caterpiller cages I built for her.
Incredibly, two summers ago she collected and raised approx. 75 eggs off her plants and she gave me a few caterpillers that I raised in my cage and released them when the butterflies emerged.
But it's crazy on how many she gets each year from the few plants she has.
I've searched the milkweeds beside my subdivision and have never found any. It's almost as if the ones she releases come back to her yard the following summer.
As a side note, I was over to their house one day, standing in the back yard when a monarch flew in and landed on a single, small milkweed plant next to where I was standing and laid an egg.
One fall, we went to the Alabama Gulf coast and rode a ferry between the mainland and the coastal islands. Here we were, miles from shore, and there were Monarch butterflies in the air. At least one landed on the ferry for a while.
I believe they butterflies were enroute to Mexico....... out over the Guld of Mexico!