New Pitchers

[Bee girl]

Sooooooooo.......the new pitchers are growing happily, the larger one is opening, what do I do once its opens, I have meal worms already as I feed my pets with them (I have three little ratties) do I wait a few days before feeding them to the pitcher? Do I feed the pitcher at all??

Cheers

[SoLongFairWell]

What kind of plant do you have? Several genera are pitcher plants and the size of them varies incredibly.

[Ordovic]

You're talking about your Nepenthes right? In which case you should probably be posting in the Nepenthes forum (it's under Pitcher plants half-way down the index page). Anyway wait a few days until it's fully open and 'hardened off' (so to speak) before you start putting anything in there. Manual feeding isn't completely necessary, although "windowsill" neps have a hard time catching their own food.

So I sacrifice whatever unlucky insect I catch in the house. I've never tried mealworms so start with one, just the once and see what happens. It won't starve.

[Mark Long]

Feeding seems to be a bit of a contentious issue. There are lots of posts on the internet of people feeding neps with all sorts, bloodworms, fish food, mince meat, milk, cheese...you name it, someone's poked it into a nepenthes. The problem is that there does not seem to be a controlled study of improvement to Nepenthes growth using a lot of these things (if someone knows of any, please forward me the pdf of link to the paper). Some may even have negative effects, but without proper controls there's no proper way of knowing.

There are some interesting posts on this forum regarding the use of coffee (filter, not instant, about half strength) by watering the plants every few months with it. I've also seen posts (though I can't remember who) where people use catfish fish food pellets (the ones which sink) to feed their neps, which is a neat way of doing it. Once again, as far as I know there hasn't been a controlled study.

Happy growing,

Mark

[19Silverman93]

I feed a blood worm to the pitcher when it's been open a day or two but that's about it, unless they catch something by themselves that is.

[Bee girl]

Yeah it is my Nepenthes, the reason why I asked is because I did read somewhere that you are supposed to feed them your self. I was just unsure, I'll wait until it is fully open and leave it a few days. I have two more pitchers on there and it looks like there is a fourth one starting :) quiet excited :).

[SoLongFairWell]

I've never fead mine. But they don't catch a huge amount, except in wasp season.