Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 14:51:43 +0000 From: "A. Griesser" <agrie@icanect.net> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2$foo@default> Subject: CP food
I have been feeding my VFT mealoworms with excellent results.
Perhaps other cp growers can suggest better insects.
Mealworm pupae
are easy and inexpensive to raise
odorless and easy to contain
eliminate overfertilization paranoia
lack cp-damaging mouthparts
are easy to feed to plants because they lack legs
have relatively little difficult to digest chitin
are a size suitable for relatively small VFT
Mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) can be purchased from pet
stores. Dump them in a shoebox sized plastic or metal
container with about a half pound of wheat bran. To avoid
fungi, do not put a lid on them: they can not fly or
climb, even as adults. Add a couple of slices of peeled
apple or potato every 3 or 4 days. Add bran so they always
have a few inches. When the frass becomes too deep, pour
the top layer of bran and insects into another container
and add more bran to the frass, which probably contains
plenty of eggs.
After they have become adults and reproduced, the adults
should be removed to another container or they will
cannibalize the defenseless pupae. (The adults do not
seem to bother the larvae.)
If you want to feed larvae to your plants, you may want to
use those which have just shed their exoskeletons, because
they have less chitin. Sorting though the bran to find
freshly moulted insects is tedious. If you put them in your
refigerator, they will continue to grow until they need
to moult, which they apparently can not do at low temperatures.
When you remove them from the refrigerator, a large fraction
of them will moult at one time.
"Giant Mealworms" (Zophobas (sp?) species) may be tempting
for larger cp, but I do not know how to rear them.
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