live or dead feed for spidling

[kevin read]

hi all, my smithi is the size off my finger nail, could you please tell me do i feed live or dead small crickets . i put two very small live crickets in with it and hasn,t shown the slightest bit of interest, there was one point where my spidling walked over the top of a cricket as if it wasn,t there . should i be worried that it,s not feeding and to stop checkin it every five mins ? I,m worried i,m doing something wrong as this is my first . i thought bringing up 3 children was bad enough ! cheers kev

[patsyking]

I have a B.smithi the same size as yours and I feed it one pinhead cricket on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and nothing over the weekend. I gave it a dead one once and it did'nt touch it. How long have you had it? If you have only just had it let it settle for a day or two and then try feeding it. I feed mine in the afternoon and if its not eaten before I go to bed I take the cricket out and try again next feeding day.

[Rich.Harrington]

I'm firmly in the school of prekilled now for my smaller slings, in all honesty its mainly due to laziness on my part. I just got fedup trying to chase nymph roaches around a tank with another 500+ adults trying to escape. Now I just take one adult per sling, kill it and leave the entire roach in the tub for a day.

I used to chop one roach into three pieces but after having a mould issue sacked the idea, it's not like im short of roaches anyhow.

[Peter Lacey]

My experience of dead ones is they seem to get ignored and mold quickly takes over. I'm in the same situation as yourself though so I'm glad the 4 out of 5 curlies I have have moulted and started eating.

[Peter Roach]

It could be due a shed so it wont feed. Leave it alone for a week or two and then try again.

[Nicola Dolby]

For spiderlings I use small maggots, they're really nutritious for the little one and go down well. however the spiders are usually unable to kill them themselves so I do that for them. I give them a maggot every 2 days, if they're hungry they'll eat, if not they won't.

[James Box]

i've used pre-killed crickets and had good success. the spiderlings often eat when i'm not around. if it's fat it's probably ok, just keep putting in fresh pre-killed and moisten the substrate. the biggest danger is dehydration.
also, as Peter mentioned, it's possible your sling is in premoult. if it looks rather more dull than usual, that's likely.
Brachy's, Aphono's and Grammy's all tend to do things very slowly, so don't be too worried...just keep an eye on the moisture level and the size of the abdomen.

the suggestion to use maggots is a good one, if you can find them small enough.
another thing you can do (though i always feel guilty doing it) is to just crush the head slightly of the crickets so they keep moving but are unable to escape. it's horrible, but the vibrations can attract the spider.

[Colin D Wilson]

Chopped up mealworms seem to go down a treat for my little ones, as does a cricket back leg occasionally.

If you want to get hold of tiny maggots then go to a fishing tackle shop and ask for squats, they're undyed and very tiny. the shop may have to order some in as they're not used that often

alternatively, as ive had to do in the past, get a bit of raw liver and let it go off, catch a few house flies and breed your own in a ventilated tub (reccomend keeping it outside as it can smell a bit)

[Nick L]

I’ve only been back in the hobby for 18 months or so but through-out this time have only ever fed live prey whether maggots, crickets, cockroaches, etc. However, about 6 months ago I bought 5 Brachypelma emilia slings that were 0.5-1cm legspan. Three of these have grown well molting every 4-6 weeks and are now maybe 3-4cm legspan. The other two hadn’t fed and (if I didn’t know better) had shrunk during that time, molting only once! That was until about a month ago… I didn’t have any appropriately sized crickets to offer to them so decided to chop up a mealworm and try them on that. This was wolfed-down and they have since gorged on any cut-up prey item. Live food is ignored as is intact dead-food. I’ve no idea how common this is (in my instance 2 out of c. 300 slings) although I have had a couple of slings die that never fed in my care – if I’d had this experience sooner I’d have tried them on cut-up food too. Has anyone else observed/experienced this?

So, regarding your sling… It may well be in pre-molt and just off its food but try a range of food, alive and dead (whole and cut-up).

[Colin D Wilson]

Yes mate,
Basically it was a similar scenario to yours many years ago that led me to start feeding chopped up mealies.
I know a few others on here do it too.

[Peter Lacey]

well I got plenty of morio worms so I might try this approach to see if I can get my 2 small curly slings to get to the same size as their brothers.

[jan soetaert]

I have the same with my smithi. I found that it would devore any of the wormy larvae of the beetles that you sometimes get with your crickets when you order them so I went for maggots of fruitfly from then on. it loves it. when its bigger i will try normal fly maggots...

jan

[Tom Forman]

I reckon the best insect to use for getting spiderlings used to live food are springtails.

Nobody seems to use them on here but they got my slings interested in crickets and fruit flies that were the same size as them in a couple of weeks.

Basically they are the same size as a pinhead cricket but they have the body of a worm that jumps by "farting" (air forcefully expelled from rear) on the ground :P

My spiderlings were scared of crickets. Roach babies are ever so slightly too big for spiderlings and I haven't found a better insect yet. They are bright white, shaped like a worm and are very noticeable since they hop about which is perfect for the seemingly blind spiderlings.

A word of warning though, they reproduce as fast and in as large a quntity as spider mites. They are not harmful in any way to plants or animals but I received them by accident in an order of white worms and I must have enough to feed a few thousand spiderlings by now. I'm not even meaning to breed them,they just live in my white worm colonies eating any mould that forms.

[Yvonne Woolley]

Feeding Spiderlings

I felt that i had a problem feeding the slings i had as they did not seem to be eating as much as i thought they needed, being a recent newbie to slings took the advice of Colin and tried several things including liver etc, I was feeding micro crickets at the time but then Louise advised trying them on half grown crickets jut cut into small portions with a sharp craft knife or somehting like
. This i did and they all growing really well they all are moulting every 4 weeks at the moment and it is fantasic watching them grow. I also feed 2 of my Juvies a few decapitated adult crickets they also are really well. Colin takes the mickey out of me and says i am spoiling them LOL at the same time putting a 3/4 grown live locust in each, they did kill and eat them by the way Colin as we knew they would but as Louise says the tiny slings will be able to eat thier fill on the dead ones and they do. BUT any left overs must be removed and hygene in really important always but even more so at this stage. RE MAGOTTS- Please don,t forget that some of the dyes that colour them can be harmfull to most animals including birds that is why the R.S.P.B.s advise is to only use white magotts for feeding them to birds and so in my eyes i personally would not feed them to my Ts.But like i said i am still a newbie and learning all the time.

[Colin D Wilson]

Me take the micky Yvonne...surely not...although next you'll be getting them a TV and cocktail cabinet installed in their tanks.

Seriously though i think some slings do better on prekilled, as i've said before i cut up mealies for my smaller slings and they do fine.
Good point about the colouring in maggots, white ones are grown on naturally. I've mentioned Squats before..these are white too and shouldn't be confused with little Pinkies available at tackle shops which obviously have red colouring added to their diet.