Feeding pumpkin to Monarch butterfly caterpillars?

I've heard this can be done, and i've also heard it cant be done, any one tried it before! My 3 swan plants are dwindling rapidly and i think their food supply is going to run out in the next 3few days. I was brutal a few days ago and killed off all the small caterpillars and eggs hoping that the large ones would have enough food to get them thru to the chrysilis stage, but they show no signs of doing that yet although i think they are massive, and they just keep on eating and eating!
15 soon to be hungry caterpillars need your help :-) I'm back at work on sunday and hopefully theres still a few uneaten swan plants there but cant count on it.

It can only be done if they are just about to chrysalis otherwise no, and even then, mixed results .

Thanks, for that, i noticed this morning that 4 caterpillars have gone off and started to become chrysilis's (sp) so that might take a bit of the pressure off, especially if some of the others follow suit soon, I hope so, not much feed left for them now, i've shifted them all onto 2 of the plants and giving the 3rd plant a chance to grow some new leaves hopefully, it seems to be shooting away quite quickly, so fingers crossed, now just have to keep the cat away from the butterflies when they emerge, it loves them

We did that one year when the caterpillars had stripped the swan plant bare. They really pigged out on the pumpkin but it killed them. Seems a little is OK but not a lot

We used to have literally hundreds of plants but gave away most a few years ago. Yes, you can feed them pumpkin, its not the best for them (prepare for orange poop!) but if they are starving its better than nothing. Any chance you can pick up a few more plants! They have them at the supermarkets now, plus all the garden centres and the warehouse. What we used to recommend is that you have 3 plants on the go, cover two, let the caterpillars have the one till its eaten down, then give the second. cover the first and give it time to recuperate, then do the same when the second is eaten. By the time you uncover the third, the first should be coming away. Cull the eggs (pinch them off if you get too many). Unfortunately as with anything else in the wild, its the survival of the fittest. If you run out of plant, the caterpillars will just go away in search of more food or die, so its best that when you see the eggs, you keep an eye on how many. We used shade cloth to cover our plants in reserve. Let them get quite big before you uncover for butterflies to lay eggs, increases the crop.

Thanks for that brighlights, good to get some solid info. Another 1 has gone off to become a chrysilis so one less mouth to feed, yay. I'm quite fascinated by them. check on them several times a day. Back to work tomorrow (garden centre) so will see if theres any swan plants left. Will try covering one up as suggested and I have been squishing any eggs I come across., mainly big ones now which should go walkabout over next few days and then the few smaller ones left will hopefully give the plants a bit of a chance to recover

I remember squishing the eggs too in an effort to control the population and also how it upset the butterflies - they knew what I was doing and kept hanging around watching - I think they really were quite upset too, they wouldnt go away

you probably felt awful, but nah. they were probably just waiting for you to go away so they could lay even more eggs