mice as food??

[Mrs Linda Street]

Sounds like you've got a good mix going there Neill, as long as they're eating and happy, that's the main thing, but the roaches are so easy to breed, and it cuts down the costs of buying from the shops or on line, if you've a large collection to feed.

[Jens Falk]

I do not a gree on that, offcourse they might survive but living their intire life on only roaches i would never recomend any one to do. Never had or heard of any problems with locusts.

[Neill House]

Sounds like you've got a good mix going there Neill, as long as they're eating and happy, that's the main thing, but the roaches are so easy to breed, and it cuts down the costs of buying from the shops or on line, if you've a large collection to feed.

Basically it is whatever i have to hand.. but for the flies etc, I just buy casters, and keep them cold until I need/want the bluebottles.. the worms, well you know yourself with them, and the dubias, like you say, are easy to keep, and the added bonus that you know what you are feeding them. At the minute, I just weed out the excess males... and crickets are the remainders of the lizards food.

Regarding locusts.. I have read a fair bit, on various forums, about people not using locusts for a variety of reasons.. be it bacterial, or others. I don't use them myself, but the reason for that is simply that none of my Ts wanted them when I offered them.. and they are expensive, so I just avoid them.

[Christian Elowsky]

I personally would'nt touch locusts, I've lost 2 nice T's feeding locusts sometime back, they carry too much bacteria, even after gut cleaning at high temperature, they are still risky imo. Well fed roaches on a varied diet is more than sufficient for keeping T's healthy throughout their life.

Since they're considered a pest in the US, we're not allowed to feed locusts/grasshoppers, nor Gryllus species of crickets, we're stuck with the Asian house crickets, which are small. But I am very interested in this statement you've made regarding locusts.

Is there more information on this topic? I'm not that familiar with all of the European discussion boards, so anything/ all links would be great.

Thanks and I am sorry you lost two tarantulas.

[Christian Elowsky]

Basically it is whatever i have to hand.. but for the flies etc, I just buy casters, and keep them cold until I need/want the bluebottles.. the worms, well you know yourself with them, and the dubias, like you say, are easy to keep, and the added bonus that you know what you are feeding them. At the minute, I just weed out the excess males... and crickets are the remainders of the lizards food.

Neill,

"Casters"? "Worms"? Now I know why I use the binomial whenever I can! Just poking a bit, mostly due to my ignorance of the English language.

Christian

[Neill House]

lol.. well Casters are the name given to bluebottles in the cocoon stage (that might just be a Northern Ireland thing though).. and worms, well I was thinking morio, wax, meal and earth.. but laziness dictated that I just wrote 'worms'

[Mrs Linda Street]

Hi Jen, thanks for your opinion but I think T's fed entirely on roaches will do perfectly well throughout their life, we feed our own colony on a wide variety of food, that in turn, I feel, is perfectly satisfactory to sustain a T. Remember, the majority of people feed only crickets to their T's, as we have done in the past, and the T's live for years, without any problems.

[Mrs Linda Street]

Since they're considered a pest in the US, we're not allowed to feed locusts/grasshoppers, nor Gryllus species of crickets, we're stuck with the Asian house crickets, which are small. But I am very interested in this statement you've made regarding locusts.

Is there more information on this topic? I'm not that familiar with all of the European discussion boards, so anything/ all links would be great.

Thanks and I am sorry you lost two tarantulas.

Hi Christian, there has been a fair bit across the forums regarding the feeding of locusts, there was quite a few threads about it on Arachnophiles & RFuk, but that was a while back. I think it's known that they carry a lot of harmful bacteria, and it is recommended to gut clean them, plenty of greens, at high temp, I think it's the 80f+, someone else may be able to elaborate on that, but I personally fed a L. Klugi AF & an A. Geniculata AF, that was the last thing they ever ate, and they were both strong healthy and good eaters, prior to taking the locusts. Also, I consider them poor food value and very expensive, and thankfully 2 or 3 other of my collection, I tried with them, refused them, but at the end of the day, people have to make a considered choice on what they decide to feed their T's.

[Nick Ashley]

Personally I would advise people not to use locusts for food. I used to feed them to spiders but having lost 6 over the years I now have totally stopped. 5 died from a "dodgey" batch from a pet shop 4 of these within 2 days the 5th took a year to die but it's behaviour was all wrong. When it died it looked like a fungus was coming out of it. The 6th spider was a cobalt blue which suffered a split abdomen caused by the spines on the locusts back legs.
Simply put, if you look at these instances and take into account the number of spiders I have kept and the time I have been keeping them, the risk would show as fairly low. BUT the risk is there.. one of the spiders I lost was an unidentified Pamphobeteus sp. which won best in show at the BTS many years ago. That hurt. So in my opinion it isn't worth the risk.

[Nick Ashley]

In regard to the other areas of this topic. I am not personally aware of any negative reasons for giving a spider a dead pinkie mouse, but I would not advise feeding them to a spider any more often than once in a blue moon. I did it once and have not done it again as I saw no real reason/benefit. Spiders will do just fine being exclusively on crickets, but like most animals, will benefit from variety in their diet.
Mine have been fed mainly on crickets, with locusts offering variety in the past. Now it is still crickets, with cockroaches forming the variety. If the roaches are as popular with the "fella's" as other people have found, then I will probably change to roaches for the main diet.

[Peter Lacey]

To answer Christian Elowsky

A while back (within the last 3 years) a discussion ensued within the BTS forums examining the various nutritional values of feeder insects and worms. I believe a source was given that provided a table to that effect. Locusts were found to be of less value than crickets, which were found to be of a lower nutritional value than roach. Surprisingly the humble earthworm proved to be a great food source.
Arguments for using a variety of roach as feeders exist on many forums, they're clean, easy to maintain, come in a variety of sizes and, as the saying goes, a nuclear bomb wouldn't kill them! They're not successful pests without reason.

In contrast the locust has shown itself to be an issue with many hobbyists and when Ive tried to answer issues with DKS one of the common denominators is locusts.
In the UK we have 4 main suppliers of feeder insects who distribute throughout the country to smaller companies. I'm unsure of the distribution circles but I'd suggest that the radius of deaths that I've come across correlating with feeding locusts infers that these locusts are not coming from a single source.

DKS can be hard to define, easy to conclude (rightly or wrongly) but equally easy to confuse with dehydration. I'm not suggesting that my diagnosis is right but as there's no articles to refer to I've tried to find common factors. For my own part I lost at least 2 Poecilotheria to feeding locusts. I didn't flush the locusts for a week, as has been suggested, and the feeding was merely from 1 box of locusts followed by the normal routine of crickets. Both these AF Poecilotheria (rufilata and formosa) showed erratic signs that were similar to that shown in symptoms of DSK - wild, tasmanian devil like dervishes where they take flight at the slightest disturbance. The next instance was a sub-adult male P. formosa I received from Dan Kennard in Portsmouth. This male showed similar signs and I recorded this on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKBIEZ63-hI

After speaking to Dan the issue of locusts was raised and he confirmed that the male had been fed on a batch of locusts. Dan, lost a number of Poecilotheria from feeding the same batch of locusts, again showing similar symptoms that suggest DKS. My third example where locusts and DKS were highlighted was a female P. miranda that I received from Matt Wells in Colchester. The intention was to use the female to mate with my male however the symptoms curtailed this purpose. On talking to Matt I found his P. miranda had been fed on locusts and a number of his collection were showing similar symptoms including a B. smithi. All of these spiders died.

Many of the other instances Ive come across are lost in a variety of forums, these are merely the instances Ive personally come into contact with. Since desisting with locusts Ive not had the same issues.

Obviously not all instances of feeding locusts have had this result, I raised 5 P. subfusca and 3 P. rufilata (both in communities) on lots of locusts without issue.

The bacteria within the gut of locusts is well documented and is seen as an aid to the locust itself. People have suggested keeping locusts at higher temperatures, flushing for a week on high water content lettuce and feeding on a high value bug feed. I'd prefer to just leave them out of my food chain.

Sorry if that went off topic, but I think its still relative to feeding tarantula.

In the case of mice I believe these are a useful addition as part of a breeding programme, to assist the female in large amounts of food but Ive only used them to feed my large females with the exception of a T. blondi that subsequently moulted into a MM. I don't see the risk in using them any more than this when there's opinion out there suggesting they have negative affects. Better to be cautious IMO.

[Christian Elowsky]

Bluebottles = Calliphora spp.?

As for the locusts, I'd suggest they have some sort of defense chemical battery other than bacteria in the gut. I am not a professional entomologist, but I can say that the very last large insects found in Nebraska, USA, are grasshoppers/locusts. The toxins found in the group vary from species to species, but are well documented. A "heat" cycle could just as likely denature or down regulate any chemical defenses in the animals. Was there anything solid linked to bacteria?

I'm not trying to be thickheaded or poke holes in folks discussions, but I have seen gravely erroneous assumptions made in regards to nematodes and bacteria in our hobby.

The take home point though, don't feed locusts, they've got sharp spines, and they have a chemical/bacterial defense system, which can cause lethal neurological issues?

Well, that's easily done in my case, since they're illegal here. I am glad I'm here reading this though, helps build a greater understanding on the entire hobby.

[Neill House]

Yes Christian, I think they are Calliphora vomitoria, but am not 100% sure.. we just call them 'Bluebottles' in general. I buy the casters (cocoon stage), and simply take a few dozen, and put this few dozen in a sealed tub in the spider room.. within a day or two they hatch.
The rest I keep up in the loft, where it is freezing (well not quite, but it is cold).

[Colin D Wilson]

In summary
Blue-bottle fly or common blow fly (Calliphora vomitoria)
Casters is a term used (mainly by anglers and fisher-persons) for the pupal stage of a fly

Locusts have a digestive enzyme in their gut that proves to have a toxicity at low temps and the locust is unable to digest at an optimal level, when the temp of the locust rises the enzyme apparently loses the toxicity and the locusts digestive system becomes effective again. This would explain why people may have problems with locust even after gut loading them or trying a better diet, if the locust is kept too cool then it will still prove to be a problem due to the enzyme not being active.

and a mini rant
DKS (again..my bug bear ) This is a mammalian problem, a syndrome connected with reaction to some drugs. The names just been grafted onto "anything" that shows an issue.
The main problems we get are dehydration and/or unexplained nervous system issues (could be connected with foodstuffs/environment/genetics ... we dont know)
If we are to continue calling it after this syndrome then we should at least get the acronym right.......Dyskinetic is one word so if we use an acronym it should be D.S.
Technically though, the issue (if we're going to continue giving it a handle) should be refered to as Dyskinesia.
mini rant over

[Neill House]

The DkS (this is the way I do it), is something I think we are never going to get a grip of to be honest. I think we should just call it 'Drunken Man Syndrome', and that leave open a load of potential solutions (rehydration being one).
I have noticed that as soon as DkS is mentioned, the noose is around the neck of the spid, and it is only as a secondary thought that it could be something else. For that reason alone, it is worth thinking of dropping DkS altogether, or at least until a time we can understand it better.