Hello all,
I've found several spiders, which, thanks to a friendly e-mail chat with Rod Crawford (I consider us Washingtonians to be very lucky to have such an expert nearby!), have been identified as Tegenaria, probably T. gigantea. So far, they seem willing to eat small crickets, pretty much the same as my T spiderlings. But I hate crickets, so my goal for a while now has been to find alternative food sources, preferably breedable, that I can use instead...
So, has anyone else cared for this species/genus before?
They definitely did *not* seem to like bean weevils, the other insect I have around here... they're a bit too small in any case, but I could feed several of them if the spider would take them. It just shoos them away. (I think it ate one, but it definitely isn't its favorite food.)
Some other things I was thinking of trying were mealworms (small ones, of course) or maybe Turkish roaches... but I don't really want to invest in starting with those unless they've got a good chance of working. I'm tempted to toss in a dubia nymph and see what happens, but I'm not sure if they'd be small enough.
Basically, what have you gotten Tegenaria sp. to accept?
Thanks!
I've found several spiders, which, thanks to a friendly e-mail chat with Rod Crawford (I consider us Washingtonians to be very lucky to have such an expert nearby!), have been identified as Tegenaria, probably T. gigantea. So far, they seem willing to eat small crickets, pretty much the same as my T spiderlings. But I hate crickets, so my goal for a while now has been to find alternative food sources, preferably breedable, that I can use instead...
So, has anyone else cared for this species/genus before?
They definitely did *not* seem to like bean weevils, the other insect I have around here... they're a bit too small in any case, but I could feed several of them if the spider would take them. It just shoos them away. (I think it ate one, but it definitely isn't its favorite food.)
Some other things I was thinking of trying were mealworms (small ones, of course) or maybe Turkish roaches... but I don't really want to invest in starting with those unless they've got a good chance of working. I'm tempted to toss in a dubia nymph and see what happens, but I'm not sure if they'd be small enough.
Basically, what have you gotten Tegenaria sp. to accept?
Thanks!