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Help! Am I feeding my plant right?!

S

sweetemb

Guest
Help! I have been feeding my plant bugs and I don't know what I am doing wrong. I fed it a ladybird over a week ago and the trap still hasn't opened up again and I fed another trap a caterpillar and now the trap has a black and yellow line on it (where the caterpillar was) What did I do wrong and why is it like this?! Please reply or e-mail me! Thanks! :eek:)
 
Hi
It can take 2 or even 3 weeks for a trap to digest something, so don't worry.
As for the caterpillar, it might be that it was too big for the trap, the trap was too old or the species of caterpillar you fed it had some sort of chemical in it that didn't agree with the VFT. Sometimes they can digest stuff fine but still leave a black mark.
Usually the best things to stick with are flies and spiders.
 
most of time, you should stick to insects that dont exceed 1/2 the lenght of the leaf, but i have used fairly large crickets and they work well. Make sure where you catch the bugs dont have any pesticides. if any body part of any insect (execpt legs, wings) it might cause a blackening in the leaves due to air being allowed in with the digestive juies (thats what causes the dieing of a lef with a meal i heard). good luck
 
Hello Emma!

From what I've read here, you probably don't need to feed it anything else for another month. At that rate, the loss of a trap or the "di-gestation" period won't matter, as the new leaf growth rate will outstrip the loss rate.

--Steve
 
Thanks a lot for your help
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I will leave my plant now for a while and see how it goes. Thanks again for replying!
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Hi, another little helpful tip, try not to feed your vft hard shelled insects it will take weeks to digest and the trap will usually be exausted afterwards. The best thing I do to my vft`s is give them plenty of sunlight,distilled water and leave them alone. I will only feed my plants about once a month,one trap per plant. Enjoy, John.
 
Reasons:


1: Ladybirds/ladybugs and caterpillers are poisonus to cps

2: The meal might have been too big. Do not feed the traps anything that is more that 1/2 the size of the trap.
 
the same thing happened to my traps. i fed them dead

baby crickets. i killed the crickets by drowning them.

dead insects are not bad for the traps right?
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???
 
This might sound silly but I got some dirt into the trap, that's ok, right? ^_^''
 
  • #10
Hello
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I personally wouls stay away from feeding vfts catterpillars since they eat plants and could damage it Plus they are large and I dont think the plant has enough digestive juices to disolve the catterpillar therefore it may rot. (I could be wrong on the last one it's just a theory of mine)
Oh and Ladybugs will kill the trap every time. Dont stress though the plant will grow new traps and everything will be forgotten.
There is a thread here suggesting what to and not to feed vfts if you need some advice and some help figuring out where its next meal will come from.
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Oh and Marsgirl don't stress it happens all of the time the trap should open in a day or so then you can just lightly mist the trap from the side and the dirt will wash out.
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  • #11
I fead my vft a ladybug should I get rid of the trap or should I just wait?
 
  • #12
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from FlytrapGurl on 3
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3 pm on May 9, 2002
Reasons:


1: Ladybirds/ladybugs and caterpillers are poisonus to cps

2: The meal might have been too big. Do not feed the traps anything that is more that 1/2 the size of the trap.
[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
 
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