What to Feed a Venus Fly Trap

The best foods to feed Venus flytraps include:

  • Ants
  • Beetles
  • Bloodworms
  • Crickets
  • Fish pellets
  • Flies
  • Fruit flies
  • Gnats
  • Grasshoppers
  • Ladybugs
  • Mealworms
  • Mosquitoes
  • Rollie pollies

Note: all these food options contain high protein content as well as soft tissues. Besides that, you can feed your plant freeze-dried or live bugs that you can conveniently purchase from any pet store or online.

Note: Please do not feed your plant meat or other human food since it can’t digest complex food. If the digestion process is unsuccessful, then your plant may end up losing leaves, and the rotting food will attract bacteria and mold.

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How to Feed the Venus Flytrap

A lot of plant parents may find it challenging to choose the right food for this carnivorous plant. However, feeding a Venus flytrap is fun and straightforward. You only need to know what, how, and when. When feeding your plant, here are the factors to consider:

  • Closing the plant’s trap needs lots of energy. So, if you are not feeding your plant, don’t trigger anything that will make them close the trap. On the other hand, don’t overfeed the plant.
  • Avoid giving the plant anything that you can’t catch naturally. That means that you shouldn’t feed it the human food, only bugs. The list above is a good place to start.
  • Don’t feed the plant insects that are larger than the trap. The ideal meal should be 1/3 of the trap or less. This is because the plant needs to fully close the trap for the digestion process to occur successfully. If the prey is too big, it will end up rotting, and the plant may end up with a bacterial infection.
  • Avoid giving your Venus Flytrap normal plant food such as fertilizer. This is a carnivorous plant that thrives in soils with poor nutrition.

The preparation process:

If it’s a live bug, then you need to feed the plant directly without additional preparation. However, dried bugs should be hydrated with a few drops of water before feeding, making them soft enough for the plant to digest.

Find the hair triggers:

Each lobe usually contains three trigger hairs, and this is what you should focus on identifying. The location process of the trigger hairs can be challenging since they are quite thin, but they can be found in the central part of the lobe.

Feed the plant:

Use your hands, chopsticks, or tweezers to place the meal inside the lobes. The best thing about live bugs is that they will instantly contact the trigger hairs, and the trap will naturally close on them. But if you’re using a dead bug, you will have to trigger the hairs by at least touching them twice within a few seconds.

Note: While Venus Flytrap will naturally close its leaves, the trap will take several more minutes to close completely. So, it would help if you continued stimulating the plant in its semi-closed state until the lobes are fully closed and the digestion has started. You can use your fingers or any other applicable tool to stimulate the lobes gently.

Monitor the plant:

Once the lobes have successfully closed, you will need to leave the plant alone to carry out the digestion process; this will take several days. In some instances, it may take weeks. But make it a point to observe the plant occasionally to ensure that everything is okay. Mainly because if the bug is too big, the digestion process will be unsuccessful, and your plant may wither.

What to Consider When Feeding a Young Venus Flytrap

Well, young Venus Flytraps need extra care since they are still “babies.” Instead of living bugs, you should consider feeding them freeze-dried bugs. You will also need a grinder or pestle and mortar, toothpick, and distilled water to do this method.

  • Grind the dried bug until you attain a smooth powdery consistency.
  • Add a few droplets of distilled water and blend to create a smooth paste. If there is any excess water, drain it away.
  • Use the toothpick to pick a small food portion and then place it on the trap.
  • Activate the trap to ensure that the young Venus Flytrap successfully closes its lobes.
endangered venus flytrap

How Often Should You Feed a Venus Flytrap?

These plants are easy to feed since they take days or weeks to finish digesting a single insect. Remember that each trap feds the whole plant, so a single insect should provide several weeks of nourishment. It may take between 3 and 6 weeks before you need to feed the plant again since they also require a few days of rest.
So, the best way to determine the feeding schedule is once the digestion process is over and the plant has rested for a few days.

Note: When feeding a young Venus Flytrap, the frequency might even be longer since the young ones don’t require as many nutrients.

When Not to Feed the Venus Flytrap

Venus Fly Trap is a carnivorous plant; however, you should not feed it meat. While this plant can effectively digest food after closing itself, it can not fully extract nutrients from meat due to meats’ high-fat content and complexity. In some instances, your plant may end up losing some leaves due to the adverse health effects. The best foods to feed Venus flytraps include:

•When the plant is dormant:

The dormant period, i.e., winter, is the most common period where you should completely avoid feeding this plant. We do this because it is the best season for your plant to rest and carry out recovery processes with minimal disturbance. Additionally, there are certain instances when its critical to avoid feeding the plant, and they include:

•When the plant is young:

Young plants or tiny seedlings should not be fed since they don’t need many nutrients. Besides that, their leaves aren’t fully developed, and at this point so giving them insects will do more harm than good. At this point, focus on ensuring that there is a humid environment and receive adequate lighting.

•Recovering phase:

Is your plant affected by pests and diseases? If so, it can’t function optimally at this point since pests, root rot, and fungus make the feeding process quite challenging. Feeding means giving your plant additional stress to deal with.

•A new environment:

Most plants are usually stressed when their environment changes, and they need time to adapt to the new changes. If that’s the case with your Venus flytrap, then you should avoid feeding it. You can wait a few days or a couple of weeks until your plant has fully adjusted.

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