FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Has anybody ever heard of gut loading? it is somthing reptile and scorpion owners do to their crickets before they feed them to their pets. the crickets are given plenty of food and water 24 hrs before being fed to the lizards or scorpions or whatever. it is much better for the animal and gives it more nutrients when they eat them. so here is my idea... we can gut load flys for our flytraps!
with what might you ask? i was thinking a nitrogen rich food tht flys are attracted to (steer manure) could be given to the flys 24 hrs prior to being fed to our flytraps. their stomachs would be full of the nitrogen rich manure and since a flys stomach is soooo tiny, it would give our flytraps a good source of nitrogen without the risk of root burn. does anybody think this would work, have no effect at all, or will it spell doom for the flytrap? please reply and thanks for reading.

The problem is, would you feed manure into a Flytrap anyway?

The chances are, the manure won't of had much chance to break down, and, tho' it would a tiny ammount, it may still have germs, and rot the trap.

plantfreak1 wrote:root burn

Root burn is only when the roots gets damaged by nutrient rich soils. Not when it gets too much nutrients by feeding.

Daniel_G wrote:The chances are, the manure won't of had much chance to break down, and, tho' it would a tiny ammount, it may still have germs, and rot the trap.

That may be true, but if the germs in the manure were killed before the flys ate it, then there would be no problem right? germs cant survive temperature extremes right? so the manure could be purified by heat or cold. im sure freezing and thawing it would be best, because there is no way i am microwaving manure=P so do you think that would solve the germ problem, or is there still the problem of it absorbing the nutrients? (either too much, too little, or not at all)

Instead of feeding the fly something nutrient enriched, why not just put a nutrient enriched substance directly into the trap with the fly. Alternately, just skip the fly altogether, add the nutrients directly, and then massage the trap closed as you would when feeding dead bugs?

Do some searching. I know I have read threads about people doing direct leaf feedings with fertilizer solutions.