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what if i feed this to a venus flytrap?

i just got some flytraps. Im curious to know if i can feed a VFT with its dead relatives?

thanks
 
.......................UHHHHHHHHHHH........

No... for one, if it's dead it has no nutrition in it and would rot inside the trap most likely. You shouldn't even begin to think about feeding it if you just got it from Wal-Mart. Check out www.Sarracenia.com, feeding it at this stage will speed up it's death, carnivorous plants are MUCH MUCH harder than a little houseplant, and if you treat it like one it'll die very quickly. It has very special needs. Lol, this is actually one of the weirder questions asked. Cannibalism :p
 
I also tried something else last night. You know those bacon pellets you put in salads, i fed it one of those and the next day it spit it out. I was like dang, these things are more human than i thought. Anyhow, these plants are beautiful.

ANd yes, i just got them from Wal Mart. So what should I do, not feed them for a while? Just have them live off of the moist soil? How about taking a live VFT and feeding it it, hence its not rotten?

Cannibalism!!! YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!... im gonna start calling my VFTs Geffrey Dahmer...
 
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Welcome to the forums.

And not to ruin the "mystisism" behind these plants or negate any of their "human characteristics" but the plant probably did not spit out the bacon bit. After closing, the traps open up quickly if they do not sense a moving, living creature inside. When a live bug gets caught it fights to get out which causes the plant to close tighter and start the digestive process.

So since your bacon bit did not move once the trap closed the trap probably reopened over the course of the night and the bacon bit rolled out. That would be my guess.

xvart.
 
lets not kill him just yet! but in any case, feeding VFTs is a bit of a dilemma. if they grow in your house, its unlikely that they will ever catch anything on their own. but when we try to feed them, more often then not we do more harm then good.

so here is what i do. when i want to feed my traps i go to the pet store and buy like 40 small crickets. i release all but a few of them into my terrarium to go on their way to their various dooms, but i save a few. break off their big hind legs and throw them in a trap and manually close it by teasing it with a thread or something.

its a bit uh, evil, but it works.

focus more on environment then feeding at this point. that will keep your plant alive.
 
Put a dead leaf in a trap and it will just reopen a day later as it is not live food.
 
I fed my flytrap a dead wasp. What happened was i went outside my patio and didn't realize that wasps where trying to make a home within my screen door. when i opened it, like 7 or 8 of them flew in my house. and i thought, hell yeah. so i was able to catch one of them and instead of killing it, i actually trapped the wasp in a cup, got some paper and lit it on fire, and put it in the cup just enough to burn up the wasp to turn it immobile but still kinda alive. so at the end, the upper part of the wasp's body was burnt, while the bottom half was still alive. so it was still moving but couldn't fly. so i fed it to my VFT and within a week, my VFT seems like it turned black where the wasps is. Is that color the enzymes from the VFT or is my plant dying?
 
The wasp was probably too big for the trap. People who feed their flytraps usually try to keep the food roughly a third the size of the trap. Either that or it has opened and closed a few times and that trap has reached the end of it's lifespan.

xvart.
 
  • #11
Seriously! You should NOT be focusing on feeding! You didn't even read enough about them to know you're not supposed to feed them bacon. Read www.Sarracenia.com, outside is the best place for the plant. It's probably already suffered from Wal-Mart and since you haven't read in depth it'll probably die. I may seem like a negative person but...

If you can give it good light (good light to you = horrible for them, extremely bright annoying light for you = good to them), good water (distilled or R/O, no tap water) and good soil (the medium it came in is good) no fertilizer then you can think about feeding. Small ants will work, spiders (not as big as the trap though! A daddy long leg works good for my once-dying-Wal-Mart VFT's, now they're safe), flies (if you can catch one or kill one with a flyswatter and put the carcass in the trap, then once it's in, completely closed around it, lightly squeeze the trap together multiple times, hint, lightly, this will trigger digestion), caterpillars work too, but, they will occasionally chew through the trap, unless you want to risk it you best injure it before putting it in.

If you simply put your VFT outside and keep it well-watered in a very sunny spot it will require minimal care, just watering. It will catch it's own food, if you have it in a windowsill or something it will become quite burnt and crispy, but mine recover from this, or you could slowly acclimate it from outside-bright shade, to partial sun, to full sun. May burn a little but not as much as if you just stick it out there! I am not a patient person so I just stick mine out there, and they recover quite quickly so I don't worry.
 
  • #12
it'll probably die.

I seriously doubt it's going to die. Even feeding a bacon bit to a plant (which wasn't successful, mind you) will not kill the plant. It will kill the trap; but the plant will still survive. Someone just needs to calm down a little bit...

xvart.
 
  • #13
Seriously! You should NOT be focusing on feeding! You didn't even read enough about them to know you're not supposed to feed them bacon. Read www.Sarracenia.com, outside is the best place for the plant. It's probably already suffered from Wal-Mart and since you haven't read in depth it'll probably die. I may seem like a negative person but...

If you can give it good light (good light to you = horrible for them, extremely bright annoying light for you = good to them), good water (distilled or R/O, no tap water) and good soil (the medium it came in is good) no fertilizer then you can think about feeding. Small ants will work, spiders (not as big as the trap though! A daddy long leg works good for my once-dying-Wal-Mart VFT's, now they're safe), flies (if you can catch one or kill one with a flyswatter and put the carcass in the trap, then once it's in, completely closed around it, lightly squeeze the trap together multiple times, hint, lightly, this will trigger digestion), caterpillars work too, but, they will occasionally chew through the trap, unless you want to risk it you best injure it before putting it in.

If you simply put your VFT outside and keep it well-watered in a very sunny spot it will require minimal care, just watering. It will catch it's own food, if you have it in a windowsill or something it will become quite burnt and crispy, but mine recover from this, or you could slowly acclimate it from outside-bright shade, to partial sun, to full sun. May burn a little but not as much as if you just stick it out there! I am not a patient person so I just stick mine out there, and they recover quite quickly so I don't worry.


im growing mine indoors. i just bought another 3 from walmart and the ones i bought have BIG mouths! anyway, i also bought a light fixture that is dedicated to plants, the bulb has that blue/ultraviolet color... but when its lit, it is bright as hell. I also bought a dish and i took all the VFTs out of that container they came in when you buy them at walmart. I have a timer that the light is hooked up to. I have the light on from 8 am to 5 pm. I noticed that some of the other ones i bought from the last few weeks, their mouths are turning red, before they had inadequate sunlight and they were just green and small..

anyway, i have a question, how can i grow them so they will turn out HUGE? And also the humidity, I live in southern california, towards inland... and my city has a lot of trees, especially where i live, so i would assume the humidity of my surroundings is pretty good. Sometimes i feel like its dry though, i keep my VFTs watered minimally as suggested in numerous websites but when i look at them, they look dry, is there something wrong?
 
  • #14
dude....all your questions are answered in the sarracennia.com faq. It has a full Q&A for every VFT question that any newcomer can ask.

http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq2000.html

Read that. U will find all your questions answered there.
 
  • #15
If humidity is a concern buy a hygrometer or a combined thermometer and hygrometer. You can buy them just about anywhere. Pet stores, Home Depot, online, etc.

Or just look in the newspaper in the weather section or use an online source such as:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/mwmap.php?map=la
http://wwwcimis.water.ca.gov/cimis/data.jsp (registration required, free)
http://www.intellicast.com/Local/Weather.aspx?location=USSC9702 (enter your zip code in the "enter location" box)

If you're in the Los Angeles area you can grow your VFTs outdoors all year round. There are even a member growing them in the Palmdale/Lancaster desert. Just make sure they have plenty of water.

BTW: a photoperiod of 9 hours is probably less than what they were getting in WalMart is could possibly signal your plants to start dormancy.

Now go do your homework (i.e. suggested reading of Barry's FAQ) and you'll know why these are such amazing plants that require and deserve the best possible cultivation. You'll also learn the basics of how to care for them. We'll be happy to answer any questions you have after that.
 
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