FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Someone posted some brilliant ideas on fertilization feeding/experiments, and then someone else posted something about feeding nitrogen-rich food to prey (in their case, crickets) and feeding the nitrogen-enhanced crickets to venus flytraps.

It gave me an idea about doing the same, except with ants. I did some research, and ant farms don't send you queens, only worker ants. So what if I got an ant farm without the ants, went out in my backyard, and basically dug up a colony to put in there-- and then started feeding them bread that's been soaked in fertlizer? Do a controlled experiment between enhanced ants and non-enhanced ants?

Does anyone think this is a good idea? (My mom doesn't. I shall have to convince my dad that this isn't a disaster waiting to happen.)

The reason I pick ants is because they account for a good 1/3 of total prey most venus flytraps catch (according to http://c-h2oecology.env.duke.edu/Duke-F ... b52-01.pdf), and can be fed to small traps that are already poised for a growth spurt.

Thoughts? I know this seems pretty ambitious, but I've got a summer ahead and a lot of time on my hands, and since I've put the Spotty VFT SEM comparison idea on the backburner for now...

That was me talking about my buddy. The ants will die without a queen. Also the plants do better with waxworms. Les chitin so easier to digest. Mix oatmeal and fertilizer glycerin until you get clumps and put balled up wax paper in there. Leave it for a week. Then feed it to your plants.

Why go through the trouble of trying to raise and gut-load ants when you could just use a proven technique like dilute foliar feeding?

Or let nature in all its wonder run its course? ...That's just what I say because I'm too lazy to mess around with prey items anymore. They catch PLENTY of bugs on there own. Plus the bugs are on there own natural diet so are probably richer in nutrients than store bought feeder bugs anyway. Did some foliar feeding for a while but didn't see a difference, but only tried it on Sarracenia.

SEB wrote:Or let nature in all its wonder run its course?

Because I'm an interfering, meddling, snot-nosed brat that likes to try stuff just to see it happen.

I can completely relate, Just teasing.

Animal meat (mammal, poultry,fish) and organs, peas, beans, oatmeal, eggs, and dairy are fairly high in nitrogen due to purines so one could try gutloading ants with meat or egg. Ant larvae might be a good source of food for VFT since most ants eat insects and caterpillars. Dig up an ant hill and look for the white grubs. Flood an ant hill, and the ants will usually bring the white grubs to the surface.

-Darrell- wrote:Animal meat (mammal, poultry,fish) and organs, peas, beans, oatmeal, eggs, and dairy are fairly high in nitrogen due to purines so one could try gutloading ants with meat or egg. Ant larvae might be a good source of food for VFT since most ants eat insects and caterpillars. Dig up an ant hill and look for the white grubs. Flood an ant hill, and the ants will usually bring the white grubs to the surface.

Trying to keep it natural as possible. Meat for flytraps isn't good. People think carnivorous and think meat so i should feed it meat. meat is waaaaay too fatty. Plants/Raw meat doesn't even sound good.
The animals would probably take in too much fat in the process. It surely wouldn't kill te plant(maybe the trap) but the more fat in an organism, the shorter the trap lasts, and you'll get these worn out ugly traps.