Versicolor Feeding?!?

[AshS]

Good luck

 

[AshS]

Here is a video of my versicolor's feeding response fail...

I Apologise for my son screaming in the background.
WTF was that?

"I want it, I want it, ahhhhhhhhh!!! It moves, I don't want it"

 

[Peavey91]

For me it's 50/50 my versi sling will take pre killed with no problem, sometimes I try dropping a live one in and it freaks, sometimes it doesn't.

 

[Jason B]

This isn't a "broken spider" thing this is normal sling behavior, its believed that slings are mostly scavengers in the wild. I prefer giving my slings pre-killed prey simply because its not easy to tell if their in premolt and I can leave the food in their over night and not have to worry about a feeder chewing on my T while its molting. Give your versi a molt or two and it'll start taking live prey without issue. I always find it much more annoying when a T doesn't take prekilled prey.

 

[AshS]

This isn't a "broken spider"

I'm well aware that my spider isn't broken, and this is normal T behaviour. It was just a light hearted caption for the video, as I found her behiour with the cricket amusing.

As it happens she made her first kill on her own last night and I'm very proud of her.

 

[dragonfire1577]

When I kept this species I found they would take pretty large roaches for their size as slings but would be prone to running instead of eating if disturbed too much when food was presented. In fact I have a picture somewhere with one eating a roach that was a bit too big imo that I gave it without really comparing it to the T well and the little spider took it like a champ.

 

[Rob1985]

I feed all of my tiny slings pre-killed prey. Just rip apart a small cricket or a dubia.

 

[AshS]

Happy days! Fed my Versicolor again today. This time she just went straight for the kill, no messing around and wasn't scared a of the cricket.

 

[mconnachan]

I've seen lots of slings get intimidated by prey at a young age, they tend gain a lot of confidence as they grow. Sometimes you come back and they are eating, other individuals may just refuse to attack altogether.

Not uncommon behavior but this usually happens when the feeder is too large, with pinhead crickets I doubt that's the issue. Why not just continue offering pre killed for now? They should grow more voracious with size, so hopefully by its next molt it will start tackling prey. If it's eating the pre killed just do what works for now.

Extremely good advice sir, very good indeed......(Was about to say same)

 

[MissHarlen]

My versicolor slings ate live pinheads within two hours of being out of the shipping box. My smaller one has hung up her two half eaten crickets and scavenges from them.