# Feeding mealworm + burrowing - will tarantula find it?



## TNC (Sep 22, 2009)

After buying locusts and failing to keep them alive for more than 3 weeks with feeding them lettuce/bran flakes and using a damp piece of cloth that i kept moist each day i decided to buy mealworm to feed my tarantulas.
I put a mealworm in each tank right near the tarantulas but the mealworm burrowed into the substrate before the tarantulas got it, will the tarantulas ever find these mealworm? ;_; because after failing 3 times with the mealworm and losing 3 mealworm into the substrate i dont know what to do.. i cant see the mealworm to get them out of the substrate and the tarantula is hungry because when i was trying to stop the mealworm from burrowing with a metal rod it went for the rod.

Sorry if this all sounds a little silly.. im not a very professional tarantula carer  
I doubt ill buy mealworm again, i just didnt want to use a food that seems to die in 2-3weeks.


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## Londoner (Sep 22, 2009)

You could try crushing the head of the mealworm before you drop it in. That should stop it from burrowing. The three that went to ground should eventually emerge as beetles  .


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## TNC (Sep 22, 2009)

Thanks londoner for your fast reply. I will try that, also can the tarantulas eat the beetles? or should i be removing them when they change into beetles? because i think i read they wont eat them D=


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## Londoner (Sep 22, 2009)

I'm not too familiar with feeding mealworms, but from what I remember, most Ts won't eat the beetles. Someone else will chime in and correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: Have a look at the bottom of the page in the "similar threads" section. Third thread down titled "Burrowing mealworm". Just spotted it.


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## TNC (Sep 22, 2009)

Got it, thanks, ill check it out =D


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## gvfarns (Sep 22, 2009)

Tarantulas can't find mealworms that burrow in my experience.  It happens I'm sure, but it's never happened to me.  This is why I don't use mealworms.


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## Abby (Sep 22, 2009)

*Mealworm dish*

Hi there,

I feed my T mealworms and I put them in a flat dish, the ones usually sold for reptiles.  My T loves it.  The mealworms can't crawl up the side of the dish so she just goes around the dish looking for them.  In this picture she is eating one of those tasty mealworms.


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## Vidaro (Sep 22, 2009)

are u refering to superworms? If i got it right mealworms(or atleast the ones i have are way to small to be eaten by T's. i only feed my slings with those.Larger T's cant even grab them


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## Abby (Sep 22, 2009)

*Picture*

Here is the picture, it didn't go through before.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Abby (Sep 22, 2009)

Shelob1 said:


> Here is the picture, it didn't go through before.


I give mine regular mealworms, and she jumps on them when they touch her legs or she feels them around her.  Maybe mine is still small enough that she can eat the regular mealworms.  I haven't tried the super mealworms.  I will probably try those once she finishes her 100 count mealworm dish


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## TNC (Sep 22, 2009)

Aww nice picture  i will also try the method of using a dish to put them in too then, thanks! The tarantulas i have are not fully grown so i figured the medium-ish size mealworms would be ok for them and id just feed them more regularly D:


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## Ether Imp (Sep 23, 2009)

Londoner said:


> I'm not too familiar with feeding mealworms, but from what I remember, most Ts won't eat the beetles. Someone else will chime in and correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> EDIT: Have a look at the bottom of the page in the "similar threads" section. Third thread down titled "Burrowing mealworm". Just spotted it.


T's will eat beetles. I've never fed mealworms, as I prefer to let them mature.

To prevent mealworms from burrowing, crush the head.

To prevent beetles from burrowing, pluck off the front 2 legs. They will still make a moving/living target for your T (to entice them), but they will not be able to escape.

That said, I've never had to pluck off their legs. Both my T (Aphonopelma sp.) and my Wolf Spider will eat them before they get a chance, or after they emerge.


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## micheldied (Sep 23, 2009)

i only feed newly molted beetles.
the Ts seem to love those,but hate the harder ones...
as for mealworms,i know what you mean by they burrow and disappear...
i just crush the head first.


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## redsaw (Sep 23, 2009)

My slings only get mealworms. I crush the heads first. If I feed any to larger Ts Ill drop them 1 at a time right in front (if not on) there legs and/or pedipalps. I have used a dish to put them in also(for bigger Ts), I just dont feed the larger ones meal worms a lot.
 I gave a freshly molted beetle once to an pederseni but that was more of an experiment than anything(to see if they would eat them), it got chomped up though.


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## killy (Oct 5, 2009)

Sorry for this delayed response, but I have some personal experience that may help you here.  

I like to feed meal worms for several reasons -  reason number one, my Ts love them, so I can't argue with that kind of success.  2, they're easy to maintain - keep them in the fridge and they seem to last forever in suspended animation. 3, they're much easier to manage in the feeding environment than crickets.  4, they're great trial balloons for potentially pre-molting Ts, that is, if the T doesn't make a mad grab for it, it's definitely in pre-molt (my latest Pulchra molt was a perfect example), and that being the case, the mealworm is much easier to retrieve from the enclosure than an all-over-the-place cricket. 

As for burrowing, one of the most awesome T-events I've witnessed was the day that I released a mealworm into the enclosure, and it managed to burrow into the substrate before my vagans had a chance to pounce on him - in a flash, the vagans bore into the substrate like a twister touching ground, with bits and pieces of coco fiber flying around, and he had the mealworm in his jaws before the poor worm knew what hit him. That"s the day I named him Diablo.  One bad-ass Tarantula. (And believe me, he continues to live up to his name!)

There have been a couple of instances where the mealworms managed to escape the Ts notice and burrow safely into the substrate, never to be seen again, as beetles or otherwise. I figured that the Ts got them somehow - lately I've been attempting to raise my own colony of mealworms, so I have several in a room-temperature setting, and I've noticed that when plunged in darkness, they seem to like to come out of the oatmeal and lounge on the surface, burrowing back in again at the slightest hint of light.  So this supports my supposition that if you leave the burrowed mealworm in the enclosure, he'll come out in the dark, and your T will get him. 

One final anecdote - Diablo again - I put a large mealworm in his enclosure and he ignored it - since he was ensconced in his burrow, I left the worm in the enclosure just in case - it turns out that Diablo molted shortly thereafter, and in the meantime, the worm molted too, into a waxy-white beetle pupa.  Again I left it there, and within a couple of days, it was gone - no doubt a nice soft tasty treat for freshly-molted, and ravenous, Diablo.


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## Ariel (Oct 5, 2009)

I keep mealworms for when I don't have the money, or it isn't convienent to run and get crickerts. When I offer them however I drop it in, if they don't eat it with in the first minute, i take it out because that usually means they don't want it, though my _B. smithi_ doesn't seem as fond of them as crickets. If I see them burrowing, I just pull them back up.


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## vohnholley (Oct 6, 2009)

well, i personally tried feeding a small mealworm last night to my chromatus sling. first of all let me tell you this looks like a second instar so again it was really small!  i threw it in the vial and this morning when i woke up it was partially eaten on top of the substrate.  
When i had it sent to me last week, i gave it a 1/4 inch cricket. bad idea because it avoided that cric like the plague and stayed in the top corner. Well since i breed and sell mealworms i decided to try it out after removing the cric last night. I am very happy that it ate since i have never owned a t that small before.. 
also the mealie was about the length of my thumb nail.

Bruce


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