Frequency of feeding/offering food to slings

[Johanna Turner]

Hi again to all!

Just wanted to pick people's brains about the regularity and quantity you tend to feed your slings?
Now i appreciate it's a case by case scenario but i just wanted to see what the general consensus was.

I have 4 slings varying between what I would say are 1cm and in the case of my N, carapoensis - approx 0.5cm!!

I have been tending to offer a (micro) cricket or two each day and check them an hour or so later to see if they have taken the food or not. So far they are all taking about 2-3 a day quite happily apart from the Avicularia sp (Margaritha Isle) (Which is the bigger of the 4) which has apparently had 2 over 2 days.

Am I right in offering like this or are they better left a couple of days between and fed a bigger quantity?

On a different note, my juvenile B, smithi seems to have finally stopped eating!! It's been packing away approx 3-4 large blacks a day for well over 9 days now and after some advise on this I am expecting a moult to be imminent!

I have just transfered it to a bigger tank and it's just scaled the flippin' walls!! Thought it was terrestrial!! lmao! (I shouldn't be worried it'll fall should I? Coz I am!)


Going to try and get some pics on here soon.

Look forward to some advice..

Cheers guys and gals!

Jo

[Erik Heidrich]

I generally feed slings an appropriately sized cricket every two to three days, so no more than 2-3 per week. If I cannot find small enough crickets, I will give small slings just a back leg or two off of a large cricket.

Even adult tarantulas really don't need more than two to 3 adult crickets per week.

That being said, I know that some keepers feed their small slings more just to get them up to a decent size, and then they slow down the feeding.

[Johanna Turner]

Thanks Erik
I wasn't sure whether they would regulate their in take themselves or if spiders were prone to over-eating?

So will the little ones happily take a leg from a cricket if offered? I was under the impression that the 'prey' had to move to interest the spider?

Thanks for your pointers though.

Jo

[Erik Heidrich]

Slings don't appear to be as picky as juveniles and adults as far has having their food move. I have never had a problem with one taking a leg. I know of another keeper on another board who freezes pinhead crickets, and just thaws them and gives them to his slings, too. As far as self regulation, it probably depends on the species, but it appears that most will take as much food as you offer, and I am told they can literally eat themselves to death, although I have my doubts.