Feeding the Venus fly trap

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My younger brother has a Venus fly trap. Unfortunately, it’s the middle of winter, so it’s kind of hard to find bugs to feed this thing.

So this morning when I got up, I went into the bathroom and there was an absolutely giant fly buzzing around. I immediately shut the door and started chasing the fly.

This bathroom is not very large. It’s maybe 4x6 feet. However, it was big enough for that damn fly to escape my grasp repeatedly.

It would fly from the window to the door to behind the toilet and go around in big circles just above my head. Picture me jumping and twirling in cricles attempting to catch a fly, and almost but not quite catching it several times…this last for about ten minutes.

Finally, it landed on the window and I was able to catch it by the leg. Yay!

“Peter, Peter, I got a fly!” I yelled, running into the living room with my prize firmly in hand. We took the lid off the Venus fly trap pot, stuck the fly in one of the little mouths, and let go.

The little bastard manages to wiggle out! It flys to the window, where I manage to catch it again after a minimum of chasing. I carry it over to the fly trap again, where I put it in the same little mouth.

It wiggles out again! It flys over to the window again, where I attempt to catch it for the third time. But wait…where’d it go?

The ceiling. It’s sitting on the ceiling just above my head. I climb onto the couch to take a whack at it, but by the time I get up to ceiling level, it’s gone.

“Crap! Peter, turn off that TV.” He does, and we listen for the buzzing of the evil fly.

“Bzzzzzzzzz.”

It’s on the window! I leap of the couch and run to the window and manage to catch it for the fourth time.

Now, how should we deal with it? It obviously won’t stay in the little mouth long enough for the mouth to close firmly on it, so we’ll have to do something different this time.

Aha! We’ll put it under the lid and wait for the fly trap to eat it on its own sweet time.

“Ok Peter, lift the lid…ok, when I put the fly in, close it really quickly…ready? Ok…open it a little more…a little more…good.”

I shove the little bastard in, Peter shuts the lid, and the fly starts walking around under the leaves and mouths.

The saga is over. I can’t believe I just wasted half an hour of my morning chasing a fly.

(The Veus fly trap hasn’t eaten the fly yet. It’s still just walking around in there. So all my hard work seems to be in vain.)

2

:slight_smile: You sound like a good brother.

These plants fascinate me. I was surprised to learn they are native to the swamps of North Carolina & South Carolina.

Do you feed it anything else if flies aren’t available?

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Or sister - you could be a good sister. Damn screen names.

4

I can attest that feeding one hamburger is a damn bad idea.

Really.

5

Don’t feed it. They do fine without catching anything. Hamburger is a very bad idea because it rots and so does the plant.
It is supposed to be dormant this time of year. To late now, making a drastic change to cold would kill it.
Keep it out of direct sunlight with the lid on, or it will cook.

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

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Obviously you would know. :slight_smile: Thanks for the link.

I’m the big sister, actually.

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Sorry 'bout that :slight_smile: I didn’t even think about it until after I posted.

You’re a good sister!

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I had a Flytrap for years, when flies weren’t available I would get dried flies from the pet store (turtle food I think) and soak one for a while then put it in one of the traps. My plant lived for a couple years, out grew its pot and died shortly after the transplant :frowning:

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I would give mine small crickets from the petstore. They run about 7 cents each in petco. I would chill them in the fridge to slow them down, and then feed them to the plant.

10

I had a Venus Flytrap when I was a kid, and catching flies was way too much trouble. So we’d swat the flies just enough for them to be disorientated, THEN feed them to the plant. That way the fly was too dizzy to fly away.

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I vaguely remember from an ecology class that carniverous plants lived in places with nitrogen defeciencies. So shouldn’t you be able to compensate for feeding the planet by enriching the nitrogen in it’s soil?

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Thats what killed mine, I repotted it in normal soil rather than the nitrogen free “soil” that came with it. (I’m pretty sure it was moss that it came in)

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I think they get the nitrogen from the bugs.

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For whatever reason, a few weeks ago I suddenly decided to research these plants a little bit, and was surprised to dicover that the traps snap shut in 1/8 of a second, so fast that the “snap!” is actually audible!

Moreover, they are “programmed” to snap shut only on the second stimulus, in order to avoid accidentally snapping shut on leaves and fallen debris. This is helpful because wach trap is only good for a few snaps, apparently. After three or four, the traps begin to die.

Which brings me to my question: how was the fly able to escape a flytrap coming down on it at that (supposed) speed? Was my information incorrect? Maybe the traps don’t close completely and there is space to escape? In which case, how many traps are there on your plant if you tried to feed it three times? Were you going from trap to trap? Curious…

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A good way to catch flies live is to get one of those clear bags that produce comes in and use it like a butterfly net. When you swing it at the fly, it has trouble knowing where the bag is. Once you get one in, close the bag quickly with your hand. Squish the fly just a little and it will be easier to feed to your flytrap.

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Why didn’t you just kill the fly and put it into the ‘trap’ carefull to make it jiggle against the trigger hairs so the ‘trap’ would close and digest the already dead fly?

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Don’t fertilize it, for that will kill it. They live in nutrient free bogs and die if nutrients are present.
There are trigger hairs inside the trap. Prey has to hit two or three trigger hairs, I disremember. This prevents closing an empty trap; traps only work a few times. Oh yeah, it you fake the trap into firing you will kill the leaf.
No wonder they grow in only a part of the Carolinas! :slight_smile:

Biohazard: did you provide dormancy for your plant?

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no…was I supposed to?

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One of the many things they say will kill them is not giving them a dormant period over the Winter. How long fif you have it?

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Around 2 years.