FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Recently I've noticed small and big holes in some of the traps. Are they caused by the bugs that are trapped inside or from bugs that are trying to bite their way inside the plant?

Didn't know birds would come and prey on my plants. Is there anything I can do about it?

Build a cage?


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ya that's so crazy how did those dam birds know that there are bugs in there?

I periodically get holes like that on some of my traps. There are certain species of insects that can eat their way out of the trap before they succumb to the digestive juices the traps secrete.

The only way to keep the critters out is to build a cage - the squirrels and birds wouldn't leave my plants alone until I did. As for the earwigs, I don't believe there's a solid solution - you can't keep your plant from catching them and you probably can't kill them all. You could put some mesh around the plant, but that would mean it wouldn't catch anything.

Hanging CD or DVD+R (not -R) might help.

Black ants can also be a problem with VFT's. The ants would march up the table legs, somehow get over the "mote" of water in the trays and chomp their way into the closed traps for a meal!
I finally had to resort to spraying Raid on the legs of the table I keep my plants on.

I haven't had any big holes since I did this...

http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/my-sq ... 19959.html

But I still get small holes sometimes from bugs chewing their way out after they've been trapped. There's no way to avoid that when it's flying bugs that get caught on their own. I figure it must happen where they grow in the wild too, so I try not to worry about it too much. It doesn't seem to hurt the plants anymore than when they bite off more than they can chew and the trap turns black because it can't seal all the way. That must happen pretty often in nature too.