FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

The wikipedia states that an average venus flytrap's diet is 33% ants, but most people tell me not to feed them ants, can i feed my venus flytrap ants?

Mabey depends on what kind of ant...black ants always kill my traps but sugar ants dont. I think spiders and crickets are healtheir than ants anyway

Flytraps in the wild mostly eat ants. Mine eats the black ants a lot. (there everywhere where i live). its caught 3 on its own today and they always open back up.

Id say yes you can feed it ants. but as lil mike said spiders and crickets are a lot better, ants don't really have much protein. There mainly a large exoskeleton lol.

Mine eat ants all the time. I've wondered though if they have something in them that's harsh for the traps or reacts with their enzymes because I've noticed they sometime leave a bleached ring where they were digested. Doesn't seem to harm the trap though.

Theres not much meat on an ant

U guys are lucky every ant my trap eatd the trap dies...mabey cus of the ubundance of fertolizers amd pesricides in my neighboorhood

I feed my larger plants large black ants all the time. And I feed smaller ants to my small plants. I've been doing it for years, and I've never had a problem with them.

When I had lizards and frogs, the people at the pet store always told me not to feed them bugs from around the house because of common insecticides and such. Would any of you guys know0 if that should be a concern of VFTs as well?

magicwiser wrote:...not to feed them bugs from around the house because of common insecticides and such. Would any of you guys know if that should be a concern of VFTs as well?

I would somewhat agree with that as to when I was researching bug types to feed my Dionaea in my early days. I would research a few popular forums including this one where you should use caution feeding them ants due to all sorts of pesticides and insecticides that higher populated areas would impose. All in all, the worst that could happen is that you may lose a trap. If my Dionaeas catch an ant on their own...let nature run its course. I personally haven't had any issues nor would I worry about it. Otherwise, I would find something better for them to suck on .

lil_mike227 wrote:...I think spiders and crickets are healtheir than ants anyway

Ahh yes, I read somewhere recently that spiders are richer in nitrogen than insects. Soooo while cleaning up the backyard today, I jostled around with a "mean" looking spider to feed my B52 with. I realized that it was a Black Widow right before the trap closed up... VFT wins.

Haha, I haven't seen a Black Widow in a while
Glad the fly trap bit it and it didn't bite you

The concept of not feeding wild insects to your pets makes sense because the pesticides can cause issues for them.

But I never understood that thought process for CP's, they're not animals so a pesticide shouldn't effect them. Now if you were going to make the arguments that the ants could wave picked up herbicide that's a different case though really that idea applies to any insect outside. Certain ants do have formic acid that they use for defense, it's possible that this can cause damage, though I'm just speculating. Also, ants are able to bite, so it may be that they cause physical damage to the trap since they're small enough to maneuver around inside the closing trap. Similar to how certain wasps will just chew their way out of pitchers when they fall in.

I wish my flytrap could eat ants. They just crawl all over it, the trigger hairs are too far apart for them to trigger the trap to close.

The ant will release asid and feromone that could harm your traps.dont feed your vft with ant.

I've had mine eat plenty of big ants with no problems

Here is a good post that sums up nutritional values of different bugs. Manually feeding the plant ants in not recommended according to this
http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/usage ... 14580.html