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Feeding vft...

How come I'm filled from top to bottom with sweet sadistic euphoria, everytime I feed my vft?
My wife watched me when I fed it today, and kinda commented a bit
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Anyone else got the same sort of problem?
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Your not alone,
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I have got the same problem. I love feeding my plants! Brings that warm, happy feeling in my gut.
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I can tell you all had magnifying glasses as 10 year olds.
 
Well its fine really, just dont overfeed it. The maximum food they should get is 1 fly every 2 weeks. Feed it too much and you will weaken the plant.
In their natrual habitat, these plants are known to go 3 months without a fly.
 
Starman, I don't know if I beleive that. Quite sure that NC swamps have more bugs than my front stoop, and my VFT's eat like pigs all on their own. No ill effects that I can see. The only problem is that traps don't last through too many meals. However, my plants replace faster than they die off from eating.
 
No, Jim, I had a microscope, a sealed off plastic pickle cup thing you get at mc donalds, AND a magnifyer! The plastic pickle cup was for slow, painful deaths, the magnifyer was to burn em alive, and the microscope was to literally burn em instantly. Ooh the humanity!
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EDIT: Just saw starmans post... There is no "REAL" maximum amount of flies to feed. A lot of times, ALL my VFT traps are closed with some bug or another in them. feed all you want, I say, just dont feed hamburger!
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Sorry all, could have made a mistake.But I do know these plants can go for very long periods without a fly.
 
I have WAAAAYYYYY to much fun feeding my plants...

Am I the only one here who does this naked?
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  • #10
I always have one trap feeding per plant sometimes two. It has work well for me.
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  • #11
[b said:
Quote[/b] (jon @ June 02 2004,2:40)]I have WAAAAYYYYY to much fun feeding my plants...

Am I the only one here who does this naked?
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TMI, dude! TMI!
Spec: I was wondering if anyone would understand that allusion.
 
  • #13
Ok, to get somewhat back on topic...

Is it true that feeding my VFTs too much will slow their growth? That doesn't quite make sense to me. I would think that the nutrients they receive from eating would allow more growth.

I guess I'm a bit confused about how to make my VFTs grow. I mean, I will cut the flowers, if they do, until the plants get bigger, but what will get bigger? I've read that a VFT will only have about 7 "branches" (my word) and that if it gets more, they are likely to split off into another plant. So I presume that means that the plant's bulb will just get thicker, and hence the branches and traps will be bigger when they spring up. Is this correct?

I'm really concerned about a teeny-tiny plant that was in with the larger plants I bought. I really want it to grow up - should I feed it?

Thanks for any feedback.
 
  • #14
Read the first topic on how to care for a vft:angry:
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  • #15
Gee, POOP, thanks for that tip! I've read several other posts here that you could probably reply to with that bit of wisdom.
However, upon RE-READING the "first topic," by which I assume you mean the "My VFT care sheet" topic, all I find regarding feeding and its relationship to plant growth is "The plant does not need to be fed to grow , but it will grow slower though ." In my various readings on VFTs, some people think you should feed them sparingly, while others seem to feed their plants a lot - I would like to get some real-world feedback on which method works best for growing strong plants.
 
  • #16
My plants on my patio are always, _always_, full of bugs.

I can't imagine how they wouldn't always be full in the wild.

I know that they can go on indefinatley without food but I'm figuring that eating more bugs helps them grow bigger.

I mean... why the freaking heck would they develop the ability to consume live prey to supliment their gathering of nutrients if it was DETREMENTAL to their growth? I mean that makes absolutley no sense.

Anyways, mine outside that are always full (its rare when I finally get a chance to see them open, usually during a dry spell or somthing), and they grow like weeds.


I mean yesterday. Yesterday all the ants in the local area decided to send off their queens to go get pregnant and then form their own colonies....

All of my plants were full of little queen ants (no males made it into my plants). I managed to feed one of them myself and got to watch the trap close on the little bugger...

lol, queen ants seem to be a pretty tough prey to keep for some of my traps though. A few queen ants managed to get out of some of the traps, just setting the plants off without them getting anything and on a few of the plants, youd see that the plants managed to keep the back abdomen of the ants inside the plants while the ants thorax and head were outside of the teeth just wriggling around trying to get free. I noticed one of the ants was freaking chewing on a trap so I cut its head off
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But yeah, in the wild, in a bog where there are ALOT more bugs than on my patio, I can't see how they wouldn't be full of food so I say feed them all you want
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However plants that have just come from the nursery where they havn't got much food might not be all used to eating large amounts of food. Heck usually when I get them from the store I'll have to slowly move them out into full sunlight because theyll get burned up if I do it imediatly, so there are alot of things you might wanna be careful about when you first get your plants...

:0

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I figure I better go buy some distilled water today because I'm out, so take care
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