FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Well, I bought a nice little venus flytrap a couple days ago, and it's still rather young. I was eager to see it in action, however, so I got my sister to swat a fly outside to feed it. However, she ended up swatting three, and now my venus flytrap has three flies to digest. I thought this was a good idea at first, but now I'm a little concerned. The plant keeps opening up again with the dead flies inside, obviously undigested. Should I leave it be, or try removing the flies? I'm afraid I may have overwhelmed it since it's so young.

Dont overfeed it.

I don't think you've over fed it with 3 flies, what I think you've done is kill the fly compleatly, it's better to keep the fly alittle alive so that once the trap closes the fly keeps on triggering the trap and the trap slowly closes tighter over the space of around 15min or so. If the fly is compleatly dead I read that you have to super gently massage the trap so it moves the hair triggers inside, do this a few times and the trap will stay shut and seal up.
I caught 3 fat Mosquitos the other day full of blood they were and I feed the lot to my baby Big Mouth.

Please correct me if I'm wrong in saying the above as I'm just a newbie too

You're right, Dr GreenThumb. The reason traps will not stay closed with dead insects inside is because it's the continued stimulation of the trigger hairs that lets the plant know it's caught something so it can go ahead and proceed with the sealing and digestion phases. While it's true that the same can be achieved by massaging the trap with your fingers, it's not always successful and may not be such a good idea for a total newbie beginner. It's much easier, *and* better for your plant, to simply place it outdoors where it can catch insects on its own, just as Nature intended. That way you don't have to worry about overfeeding it. And yes, you *can* force feed a flytrap too much, the same way you can over-fertilize a regular plant. Removing dead bugs from reopened traps isn't usually a very good idea either. You usually wind up triggering the trap to close again which only wastes more of the plant's energy in the long run. I've heard that leaving dead bug carcasses inside the traps will help lure more bugs, especially spiders, to come around, but I've never personally seen much evidence of that myself.

The short answer on your post subject: Yes, you can overfeed your flytrap.

There is a ratio of fed traps to live traps you should be aware of, but for the moment that number escapes me.

Alright, thanks everyone! The trap is currently still opened with the dead flies, but I'm not going to force it closed. I'm leaving it outside today in the sunshine. It was raining yesterday and it barely got any, so I hope this helps it.

Just be careful not to overexpose it to *too* much hot, direct sun all at once if it's never been outdoors before. That can burn all the leaves completely off. I know some people say that's no big deal. They say, "Let it burn, baby!" because all the new leaves that come up afterwards will be acclimated to the hotter, brighter light, but that seems like an unnecessary stress on the plant to me. If you can gradually acclimate it to more and more direct sunlight without losing the leaves which are carrying out photosynthesis to make food for the plant, it seems like it would be better off in the long run.