How to Feed a Venus Flytrap

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Wes on behalf of Expert Village.com, and in this video segment I am going to show you how to grow the Venus fly trap. If you want to know more about carnivorous plants and Venus fly traps, you can visit us at equilibriocarnivorousplants.com. In this video segment I am going to talk to you about feeding your Venus fly trap. So the most important guideline when you are feeding your Venus fly trap is to only give it food that it can find in the wild. Things like insects, spiders, crickets and ants are perfect for the Venus fly trap. You want to stay away from foods like hamburger or hot dog or ham. These types of food, that we may think are good for the fly trap, can kill the plant in a matter of days or weeks. You can also use insects that are newly killed. Our customer’s often ask us about this. So if you have an ant that you are afraid that will run out of the trap, you can squash it and put it right inside of the fly trap. The types of thing we like to use are these worms. These are from a glarus species of moth. They contain absolutely no or very little calcium. This is very important, because worms that have a high calcium content, like Phoenix worms, will cause the plant to go rigid after feeding several times. So when you are feeding your fly trap, you want to place the insect or food item directly inside of the trap, wait till it starts to close, and then remove your tweezers or your fingers. You can feed the fly trap as often as it will open its traps, and you can feed as many traps as the fly trap has. Usually it will take about 5 to 10 days for the trap to open again, at which time you can put more food inside. If you are growing your fly trap outside, especially during the summer, the plants will have no problem catching insects on your own. "