Re: Nutrition Label for insects

From: BREWER_CHARLES@ecomail.damneck.navy.mil
Date: Tue Sep 02 1997 - 10:50:51 PDT


Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 13:50:51 -0400
From: BREWER_CHARLES@ecomail.damneck.navy.mil
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg3328$foo@default>
Subject: Re: Nutrition Label for insects


     Matt,
      I can help you a little, but maybe someone else can go into greater
     detail if you desire. I can tell you that it is normal for a vft to go
     into a growth spurt after feeding. The traps of a vft Grows Close and
     has to Grows open again. This is one reason for a growth spurt besides
     having a good meal. As far as insects, the vft will eat just about
     everything it catches. I would be a little concerned with large ants
     as this seems to bother them. I feed my vfts with Large Crickets,
     Moths, Butter flies, Horse Flies, Small Frogs, Large Spiders, Dragon
     Flies, Wasps, Daddy Longlegs Spiders and the list goes on. Of course,
     these plants do a fantastic job of catching their own insects. I feel
     the meatier the bug, the better. My favorite food for Sarr's and VFTs
     are crickets.
      As far as how acid the soil is, I would not consider topping the soil
     with dead bugs. You can attract unwanted insects that may not be so
     kind to your plants and if your plants are outside, you are also
     inviting small animals to visit your plants.
      If you stick to the 50% peat/50% sand you shouldn't have any trouble
     with ph. You can even use all peat if you wish. As for testing your
     soil, you can get a test kit at any garden center, pet store, mail
     order etc. This will give you a ball park range.
                        Charles Brewer
                         Va Beach, Va

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Does anybody know anything about insects? After feeding my VFT a nice
sized spider, i noticed a good growth spurt which I assume was from
the spider. I was wondering if spiders are better than flies or
whatever other insect, since spiders consume insects and thus I would
think have more protein in their bodies from this diet. On the other
hand, flies have good muscles for flying and muscles contain protein.
Does anybody know what the optimum nutrition for CP is? Also: Placing
dead insects on the top of the growing medium will naturally raise the
acidity of the soil, correct? And how can I rougly estimate how
acidic the soil should be and whether or not I should make it more
acidic?



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