FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

After the death of my sundew a weeks ago, I got depressed that I failed. But then I got excited about the new knowledge I now have. I recently bought a Venus flytrap Grun. The main reason I bought this was because it was stated to be a very hardy plant, if not one of the absolute hardiest. Now that I've spent more time doing hardcore research, I have some questions that I couldn't find answers to.

1. Can I feed my plants long dead insects without any consequences? I'm talking about insects that have been dead for about 1-3 weeks. The dead insects consist of flys, spiders, and house centipedes that have died due to my basement's cold temperature or starvation. The only answer I could find was that if they weren't moldy, they were ok.

2. My plants ideal spot is on the front of my porch, where it is exposed to 5 hours of direct sun. Should I be worried if it were to rain for extended periods? I read rain can be beneficial to flytraps but its also not a good idea to keep them soaking wet. Should I put them somewhere less wet when it's supposed to rain for long periods?

3. Are there any 100% Guaranteed safe foods for feeding while giving strong amounts of nitrogen? I know things like spiders are easier to feed because they do not have mandibles that allow them to chew their way out but their legs tend to stick out and cause blackening. The pinned page on the forms says crickets and mealworms are safe and beneficial but I read a few post that said they can chew their way out from the inside. I also know you can feed fish food like bloodworms.

4. Are there any predators that I should have to worry about? I live in the suburbs so I don't think any animals would want eat my flytrap. But you never know what might happen.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

short quick answers before i jump offline

1. I personally wouldn't, but as for them being ok or not I couldn't tell you. (answer 3 will bring me to why also)

2. rain is fine, just be sure if you are using watering trays to dump them or drill a small hole at the level you don't want water to fill past -- I am just mindful of the weather forecast and if I know rain is coming or for an extended period I run less water in our trays outdoors or no water for a day or so if its not too hot.

3. a lot of folks myself included if you do feed them extra foods, dehydrated blood worms with no additives (fish food) or crushed up beta pellets, rehydrate with distilled water for a couple minutes, roll into balls, use a toothpick or other object to insert 1/3rd or smaller sized piece into trap, trip trigger hairs, then lightly squeeze the trap on the outside to simulate it moving around every so often for a few minutes. with how cheap a huge supply of those are I wouldn't see the point in collecting dead bugs from basement for them

4. feral cats, household cats, squirrels, etc really anything that could dig at them or knock them over, some people if it is a concern/problem in their area will make cages.

1. I've always read, "no", but I've never personally tried it.

2. They will do fine as long as you choose a well draining medium and container. The more rain you expect, the more airy you'll want your mix to be.

4. Squirrels, mites, and birds are the worst around here. Squirrels like to dig them up, and birds like to peck all the traps off and sometimes pull them up.

You can feed old dead bugs, it won't hurt the plant, but it doesn't do much for them.