Why won't it eat?

[FutureForces]

I couple days ago I fed my VFT a dead beetle. The beetle died of natural causes. When I placed the bug in the trap, the trap closed. The next day, I noticed that the trap opened up again, as if it were rejecting its food.

What's wrong? Why won't it eat?

 

[greenhouse1]

Beatles are usually a no no for the flytraps. They have a hard shell and the traps won't digest them. Try flies, mosquitoes, or small crickets and see what happens. No moths either please

 

[schloaty]

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!!

 

[PlantAKiss]

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

 

[FutureForces]

Thanks for the tips folks. Yes, I bought a VFT not too long ago, so I'm still a greenhorn when it comes to raising them.

So far so good. I water it with distilled water, and it's growing quicker than what I had expected! Hopefully, I'll watch it eat soon

 

[Ross L-Town]

I herd you say something about no Moths. WHy is that?? I live in Colorado and worried that it might be to try any help?

 

[Ross L-Town]

I ment DRY it might be to DRY

 

[schloaty]

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.