Spiderling Care - Advice please

[Hayley]

Hello there. Im new to the forum.

We attended the BTS show last Sunday in Birmingham, and came home with a few new additions - a fairly large unsexed Avicularia versicolor along with some versicolor & Avicularia minatrix spiderlings.

We have kept some various other spiders in the past, but never spiderlings. I have searched through the web and the only information I cant find is on feeding them.

I would like to some advice on how often we should feed them, and what type of food is best? All have eaten already, the spiderlings have had one or two small crickets (killed beforehand) each and the larger Versicolor is feasting on a cockroach as we speak. It gave a great feeding response, as did most of the spiderlings. Others attempted a meal at their own leisure.

Any advice would be much appreciated.
Many thanks.

[Layla McInnes]

I feed most of my Ts weekly although some choose to do more or less. As far as type of food, most commonly used is crickets. Also roaches and locusts. As long as the food is small enough you shouldnt need to pre kill it.

[Gary Pomeroy]

Hi

You could also try Maggots I have read that they are a good source of food for a spiderling.
I feed mine them and it can be funny watching them dig the maggot out of the substrate.

Gary

[Lee Williams]

Many people would say fruit flys or pin head crickets but from my experience with them, they die quick and not are not the best source of nutrition. Maggots are the best for slings but make sure you buy white maggots, any other maggots have been dyed and can be very harmful to your spider.

[Mike Lainchbury (snork61)]

I bought my first spiderling a few months back and I`ve fed him waxworms and pinhead crickets. The crickets seemed to last for weeks, helped by using a moistened cotton wool bud.When the waxworms turned into moths, I fed them to my juvenile A.versicolor. He has moulted three times since I got him in January
Cheers, Mike.

[Hayley]

FAB!!! Thanks for all your help everyone.

How often do you think I should be offering food? They seem to be eating the small cric's no problem and most have eaten 2-3 since Sunday (some have put the 3rd in their web for later), and we are going to locate some white maggots too. We are really pleased with them.

The larger A.versicolor enjoyed a large roach the other night and seems settled, so will offer it another meal soon.

[sarah Smith]

I think its best to offer according to the eatting habits of each spiderling as even ones from the same egg sac can have different eatting habits. Just note the size and the numeber of prey each one takes and offer that again at the next feed. Wait to feed again when all prey offered previously has been eatten, but dont forget to check on them each day incase you need to remove prey due to spiderlings going into pre moult. I find as a genreal rule the smaller the spiderling the more food they want to eat and the more often they want to eat. some of my really young ones are on 2 or 3 prey items a day right now, however as they get older this will decrease. The real key is to be aware of each spiderlings personal eatting habbits.