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Mmm, the smell of ...

Ok, ok -- so I am a bit new to the nepenthes side of things. For the past 4 or 5 years, I have had only 1 nep - (its a ventrata)...

Is it me - or --- after feeding a nepenthes a few slug, snails, and misc. other critters -- it just starts to smell interesting? I guess since the pitchers are now larger - they can hold more -- and now I have it in my new greenhouse so the air doesn't just waft away like it does when I grow it outdoors... I do have automatic openers that open when it gets like 85ish or so, but since its gettin' cooler -- don't think its opening as much, and I haven't been home really this week to open the manual vents. The high in the greenhouse was 80 today, low at night was about 50

I haven't been in the greenhouse in a few days - I walked in there today and noticed this smell -- it wasn't strong or anything tough -- but when I walked up to my nep and sniffed the pitcher - OH MAN!! DID THAT REEEEEK!! ( Oh, it only had about 4 slugs, some snails.... sitting in this nice liquid. Forget Starbucks folks, this is the real wake-up juice!!!)

So, how does one deal with it? Not feeding snails, slugs and other viscus meaty creatures would be my first guess -- and I'm guessing Febreeze don't make no spray for plants and Dr. Scholls odor eaters wont fit in the pitcher for now... so -- baking soda? Charcoal round the nep? it's bearable, but what about those others out there whose pitchers will catch things large enough that when the prey starts to decompose it starts to smell like pepe lepew?

In the wild im guessing smell will draw additional prey to the plant. I remember reading a post here about a BAT that a nep caught - oh, imagine the extra flies and critters it could of caught! shewt, i'd like to feed my nep a racoon if it was big enough...

Oh well... at least it has A LOT of new growth, so I know its happy! :-D
 
just let it catch what its supposed to catch. my neps have caught tons of flies and a few spiders. all naturally caught. nothing smells at all. i guess they "know" a limit because the pitcher that are more full have actually stopped producing nectar. coinsidence maybe...

Alex
 
snails and slugs are what u r smelling. Those things smuck up the entire house. its an insane stench. :(
 
well.....I personally would never use them. Even if there are any advantages, the stench outweighs it by a huuuuuge margin. Instead, just get some small crickets or something at the pet store and enjoy torturing the bugs. :p lol
 
if you think that's bad, my nep caught a stink bug in the fall and THAT smells 10X worse...and yes, i have had the misfourtion of smelling a pitcher full of slugs and snails...but the stink bug takes the cake...it makes me cring just thinking about it...uhh
 
well.....I personally would never use them. Even if there are any advantages, the stench outweighs it by a huuuuuge margin. Instead, just get some small crickets or something at the pet store and enjoy torturing the bugs. :p lol

I met this grower in my area who had some sort of Lowland Truncata Hybrid (he wasn't sure of the parentage) which created huge pitchers. He used to buy the little pinky mice that they sell at pet stores and feed it to the pitchers. He would also take pictures of the pitcher with a mouse in it and post it on the web for the local CP society which no longer exists in my area. Anywho, long story short, PETA contacted him and started whining. They said it was cruelty to the mice (feeder mice!). These are the same mice given to snakes to chow down on lol. So anyway he had to take down the pictures from the CP Society website because they said they had a case worker to examine the "animal cruelty". BTW the mice were dead before being fed to the pitcher. He tried to reason with them by saying that this is a natural process in the wild and that these plants need to eat. They told him that they were trying to convince CP nursery owners to feed their plants fertilizers so another bug doesn't have to lose it's life to another plant LOL. So he couldn't show his plants eating mice, and they didn't even want him feeding them insects LOL. Damn PETA...
 
Oh man.. rotting mice + stinkbugs. Yum-o!! At least they have been put to work towards something useful... Nepenthes food. Heh heh heh...
 
Get out of the dark ages and fertilize!
 
  • #11
... but where's the fun in that? :-))
 
  • #12
I met this grower in my area who had some sort of Lowland Truncata Hybrid (he wasn't sure of the parentage) which created huge pitchers. He used to buy the little pinky mice that they sell at pet stores and feed it to the pitchers. He would also take pictures of the pitcher with a mouse in it and post it on the web for the local CP society which no longer exists in my area. Anywho, long story short, PETA contacted him and started whining. They said it was cruelty to the mice (feeder mice!). These are the same mice given to snakes to chow down on lol. So anyway he had to take down the pictures from the CP Society website because they said they had a case worker to examine the "animal cruelty". BTW the mice were dead before being fed to the pitcher. He tried to reason with them by saying that this is a natural process in the wild and that these plants need to eat. They told him that they were trying to convince CP nursery owners to feed their plants fertilizers so another bug doesn't have to lose it's life to another plant LOL. So he couldn't show his plants eating mice, and they didn't even want him feeding them insects LOL. Damn PETA...

You have got to be kidding me. And just think - these people are breeding. God help us all.
 
  • #13
indeed.....some people...
 
  • #14
Thats is just weird,I use organic hydroponics ferilizer(%10
 
  • #15
I use Organic hydroponics fertilizer at 20% strenghe with 50% miracid nothing but growth and quick recovery.. I think it is just weird there already dea,they feed them to snakes LIVE
so I think they are overeacting,hey animal cruelity is one with but feeding dead mice to nepenthes,
I think not..
 
  • #16
PETA needs to understand when they are actually needed...like in an actual animal crulity case...and not waste their time on petty things such as this...
 
  • #17
PETA = PLANTS EAT THE ANIMALS...
 
  • #18
PERFECT!!! LMAO!!!
 
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