I have searched the forum and read the appropriate posts on feeding, and I am wondering if my strategy for feeding my new VFTs (which seem to be doing well after one week near the window) is a good one. Opinions, please, and my heartfelt thanks now.
My idea is to let them catch what they can against the south window. We get the occasional fly and spider in the house, and I'm thinking it's inevitable that they'll get one a month or so, starting in May, when it will be warm and sunny most of the time.
Also, I don't want to put them outside if I can help it. There are many young 'uns around; unfortunately, these children are too big for the traps, and yet the plants will draw them like birthday cake.
My problem with this strategy is two-fold. The first issue is practical--I want them to thrive and grow, and if they only get a couple of insects each all summer I'm afraid that won't do. Also, I don't know how early this spring they will need to feed in order to grow optimally this year.
The second is emotional. They have open traps--one especially has two pretty good-sized traps, a nice pinkish-red on the inside. Frankly, it looks like it's begging to be fed, like a baby bird in fact. I'm on a diet myself, and it's bothering me to look at it gaping at the air, without a chance of food for weeks. That it resembles some kind of otherworldly nightmare that would as soon eat me if it could does not quell my paternal feelings at all.
So--given that it's early spring here, with pretty low light conditions (sunny one day this week) and quite cold, do I just let the little monsters starve for their own good until May? Or do I feed them, because they need the food now if they are going to develop later, and because it'll let me cheat on my diet by proxy?
Thanks again.
--Steve
My idea is to let them catch what they can against the south window. We get the occasional fly and spider in the house, and I'm thinking it's inevitable that they'll get one a month or so, starting in May, when it will be warm and sunny most of the time.
Also, I don't want to put them outside if I can help it. There are many young 'uns around; unfortunately, these children are too big for the traps, and yet the plants will draw them like birthday cake.
My problem with this strategy is two-fold. The first issue is practical--I want them to thrive and grow, and if they only get a couple of insects each all summer I'm afraid that won't do. Also, I don't know how early this spring they will need to feed in order to grow optimally this year.
The second is emotional. They have open traps--one especially has two pretty good-sized traps, a nice pinkish-red on the inside. Frankly, it looks like it's begging to be fed, like a baby bird in fact. I'm on a diet myself, and it's bothering me to look at it gaping at the air, without a chance of food for weeks. That it resembles some kind of otherworldly nightmare that would as soon eat me if it could does not quell my paternal feelings at all.
So--given that it's early spring here, with pretty low light conditions (sunny one day this week) and quite cold, do I just let the little monsters starve for their own good until May? Or do I feed them, because they need the food now if they are going to develop later, and because it'll let me cheat on my diet by proxy?
Thanks again.
--Steve