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Why won't it eat?
- Thread starter FutureForces
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- vft
Hey FutureForces,
First, Welcome to the forums!
Second, VFT's often won't eat dead stuff without help. Greenhouse1 is right about the beetles, too. Soft-shelled insects and spiders are better.
A VFT will not keep it's trap closed & digest with the stimulation of a struggling victim. This can be manually recreated by sticking a thin toothpick or something into the closed trap and wrigling the dead body, if you're trying to feed it something dead. You'll have to do this about every 15 minutes for a couple of hours...Live bugs are much easier.
At any rate, this is movement is needed because the VFT leaves are stimulate to grow closed by repeated stimulation of the little trigger hairs on the inside of each trap. You can see them with the naked eye, if you look. Most of my traps have three on each side, but some have a few more.
Hope this helps!
If someone else has a better way of describing (or needs to correct me) this, please chime in!!
First, Welcome to the forums!
Second, VFT's often won't eat dead stuff without help. Greenhouse1 is right about the beetles, too. Soft-shelled insects and spiders are better.
A VFT will not keep it's trap closed & digest with the stimulation of a struggling victim. This can be manually recreated by sticking a thin toothpick or something into the closed trap and wrigling the dead body, if you're trying to feed it something dead. You'll have to do this about every 15 minutes for a couple of hours...Live bugs are much easier.
At any rate, this is movement is needed because the VFT leaves are stimulate to grow closed by repeated stimulation of the little trigger hairs on the inside of each trap. You can see them with the naked eye, if you look. Most of my traps have three on each side, but some have a few more.
Hope this helps!
If someone else has a better way of describing (or needs to correct me) this, please chime in!!
PlantAKiss
Moderator Schmoderator Fluorescent fluorite, Engl
Hi FutureForces
Welcome to the forums!
Schloaty is right...dead food isn't a good idea. The traps do need more stimulation (wriggling prey) to form the "vacuum" it needs to feed. That is the way the traps know it has food vs. a piece of a blown leaf or a rain drop that triggered the trap to close by accident. If the prey doesn't wiggle, it figures its not edible, and the trap opens back up.
If you keep your flytrap outside, it will feed itself nicely, just as they do out in the wild. If you want to feed it, try catching a live fly, then put it in the freezer for a while which will put it into a kind of suspended state of animation. Then you can put it into the trap. As the fly warms up and starts to move again, it will stimulate the trap to close tighter.
Is your VFT new? Do you know how to care for it (water, light, soil requirements)? You can find all the information you need on its proper care here in this forum and you can always ask questions too!
Good luck.
Suzanne
Welcome to the forums!
Schloaty is right...dead food isn't a good idea. The traps do need more stimulation (wriggling prey) to form the "vacuum" it needs to feed. That is the way the traps know it has food vs. a piece of a blown leaf or a rain drop that triggered the trap to close by accident. If the prey doesn't wiggle, it figures its not edible, and the trap opens back up.
If you keep your flytrap outside, it will feed itself nicely, just as they do out in the wild. If you want to feed it, try catching a live fly, then put it in the freezer for a while which will put it into a kind of suspended state of animation. Then you can put it into the trap. As the fly warms up and starts to move again, it will stimulate the trap to close tighter.
Is your VFT new? Do you know how to care for it (water, light, soil requirements)? You can find all the information you need on its proper care here in this forum and you can always ask questions too!
Good luck.
Suzanne
Ross,
VFT's aren't that sensetive to humidity....You should be fine in colorado. That said, though, if you do buy one, I would introduce it to a lower humidity environment slowly, so as not to shock the plant.
As for the "no moths" thing, it's becuase moths tend to rot traps...not really sure why, maybe they're just too juicy!
If you do grow a VFT outside, it will catch its own dinner, so you really don't have to worry. If it does catch the occasional moth, it will probubly not hurt the over all plant.
VFT's aren't that sensetive to humidity....You should be fine in colorado. That said, though, if you do buy one, I would introduce it to a lower humidity environment slowly, so as not to shock the plant.
As for the "no moths" thing, it's becuase moths tend to rot traps...not really sure why, maybe they're just too juicy!
