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Feeding crickets to your nepenthes

Well since summers over and finally I'm rid of the autumn housefly problem I need to feed my plants other things than swatted flies and japanese beetles. I picked up a bag of a dozen two week old crickets (about the size of two houseflies (or one very large housefly). I froze em last night so I can use them whenever a new trap opens but I'm curious how many crickets can be used in a pitcher which is apx 4" tall? I have (in the past) only fed one housefly to each pitcher about 3-5 days after opening and things have done well but I'm curious about using more to obtain bigger/better results but I am cautious about it because I don't wanna blacken the traps like I did with just a few drops of bloodworms (mosquito larve) and whole milk.

Any of you with bigger pitchers have any tips on how many and how large the bugs are that you feed your plants?
 
hey sword i would go no more than 2 at a time. i did the same thing you did with blood worms a pinch in 2 pitchers and with in a week they were black but, i have put tadpoles nice size one, dragenflys, roaches,small lizard,baby fish into pitchers and they have had no problem. i guess its just them worms they don't agree with. haven't tried milk or egg shell yet.
 
I tend not to feed my plants, but they occasionally get crickets that drown in my lizards water dish. I don't like to put more than about 2 in a pitcher, maybe 3 on the x Judith Finn. Otherwise, I never put anything in the pitchers.
 
Small lizards!? Your so cruel....:( . Well, in my mine at least lol
 
The milk is OK so long as it does not get on the pitcher walls. If you use an eyedropper and are careful to put only a few drops directly into the fluid it seems to do OK but any drops that hit the pitcher wall will cause it to blacken whatever the milk touches outside of the digestive area. At least that's what happened to my eustachya and ventrata pitchers which got a drop of milk in the wrong places the while the others which got milk did fine.

Whether or not milk actually did anything noticeably bennefitial for the plants which received it is up for debate because they all got flies, jbeetles and ladybugs over summer and get a bi-weekly fertilizer watering flush (including trace elements) ontop of feeding.
 
I use the mini size crickets. Benifit my Neps greatly! Use them I reccomend! Great for feeding smaller pitcher like Merrilliana's,Rajah,Lowii,Burbidgeae,Tobiaca,Hamata,etc. But I also would like to notify you all I did try PURE superthrive in a pitcher, I used it on a bical pitcher and I induced the superthrive fluid with a precision eyedropper. And from now on the pitcher is fine! And the bical hasn't responded too much yet but is a tad noticable in change. Also try mealworms, I use them alot, just cut them open as it makes the digestive process fast rather than taking time to eat through the tough exoskeleton.
 
This speaks to me... I have been wanting to go to petsmart and get some circkets for cp feeding goodness... but I am holding off, I am picking up some pasteurized crickets from Phil and Jeff when I go down there later this month... my neps haven't eaten much in the last year, they can wait a few more days...
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then I have some pitchers that are already in decline I have just been saving... hehh... they will be gluttons.
 
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