Micro Crickets

[Peter Roach]

my slings are around about 4-5 cm leg span now do u think that the pin heads are sufficient im housing 2 jars containing 5 pederseni slings in each?

At nearly 2 inches I would be feeding them on adult browns !!!!!!
I wouldnt/dont bother feeding pinheads to anything excepts slings under 0.75cm.
Slings of 1cm and upwards get size 1 or 2 brown crickets, once they reach the ginormous size of 2 -2.5 cm (1 inch) I generally feed maggots until they have reached 3 -3.5cm. They are then fed lobster roaches of varying sizes.
I feed maggots as they are totally defenceless and the slings are in no danger but I dont think the slings care anyway ..... because its FOOD !!
Slings can and will take on suprisingly large prey compared to their size.
I prefer roaches over crickets because it is much much safer for the sling/spider.
Here are a few old pics that I have shown before of small slings taking on maggots that are as big as themselves.

Boehmei


Smithi


seemani

[Tom Forman]

yeah 2-4 cm is quite big for pinheds after all.

Patsy I love your straw idea, I will have to give that a try next.

[James Box]

partially due to my hatred of micro's and even size 1 crickets, i try to get my slings on bigger prey as soon as possible!
i've seen many of them take down crickets and even mealworms and maggots the books say are too large and make a good job of it.
that being said, there were some good solutions presented for microcricket wrangling! will have to give them a try
also, if you can stomach being it (i find it hard), crushing a larger cricket partially so that it's nearly dead means the smaller slings will come and chew on it. they'll take freshly killed as well.
they've not done it while i looked, but their speed, weight gain and growth were the only signs i needed that they were alright.

[Kate Arbon]

I recently bought a tub of "3rd" crickets (whatever that means, they were about 3-6mm) for my slings. A trick I discovered was to cut up some short pieces of a drinking straw and put them in the tub. Some of the crickets hid in the straw pieces, then i just took the straws out and tapped the crickets into the sling pots.

Still managed to lose at least 3 of them in my bedroom though. God I hate crickets!

[Peter Roach]

If I must use micro's i tap them into a clear plastic freezer bag and then carefully tip them into a salt pot, the type with a single hole. It is then a simple case of tapping them out as needed.

[James Box]

Peter that's such a great idea...i'm going to give it a go.
so far, my "strategy" has been to chill in the freezer til they stop moving and fall into the egg carton, then either scoop them out with a spoon or get them with tweezers. of course, they start to wake up less than halfway through feeding everything
i've only actually used proper micros a few times, i use number 1's mainly for the smallest spiderlings.

[Naython J]

thanks for all the good tips and advice there i decided the pin heads where much to small for my pederseni and are using thr smaller of the tub of medium adult brown crix i got with a few waxworms to boot they seem to be good with this so its all good


oh and for anyone that dont know


2 days, 11 hours, 47 minutes, and 34 seconds left until 23rd Annual BTS Exhibition May 2008