What Is The Best Food To Feed My Carnivorous Plant?

I have some vegetarian pet food, can I feed it to my Venus flytrap? Would a vegetarian plant be more ethical than a carnivorous plant?

• Answer:

  1) I suggest that you don't feed a Venus Flytrap anything else than what they are supposed to eat, like bugs, because they could die easily if they are not handled properly. If you think it ethically problematic to feed carnivorous plants, don't grow them. Most plants are not carnivorous. Alternatively, you could create conditions where they might catch their prey themselves. If you own a car, you probably kill much more bugs with your windshield during a short trip than a Venus Flytrap could do in its entire life. 2) "Feeding Your flytrap loves to eat to give the plant nitrogen and other compounds that will help your plant grow. Each individual trap can be fed, but the plant should not be fed more than once a week. Without food, the plant may survive, but it will not grow very well. A good feeding cycle for optimal growth is once every other week (once meaning one bug to the whole plant, not each trap). Your plant will also grow well when fed only once a month [...] A typical leave will only trigger 3-4 times. If the trap catches a few bugs, it will die and a new bigger trap will grow in its place." Source and further information: http://mycarnivore.com/venus-fly-trap-care.php Further information: http://www.venusflytrapcare.com/ http://www.flytrapcare.com/ 3) "Outside the animal kingdom, there are several genera containing carnivorous plants and several phyla containing carnivorous fungi. The former are predominantly insectivores, while the latter prey mostly on microscopic invertebrates, such as nematodes, amoeba and springtails." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore