An adult hissing roach for a large-ish H. gigas?

Tim Benzedrine

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I gave a couple hisser roaches from my colony to somebody, who expressed the opinion that it could be fed to an H. gigas. I'm a little skeptical. I mean I am sure that the gigas could take it down, but wouldn't it be a little bit of over-kill? My LP is around 6-1/2 inches and 7 inches, and I'd never bother to give it a large hisser, as it seems like a waste of a resource. In the case of my LP, the mass of one of my big hissers would easily match the size of the spider's entire abdomen apart from the diameter, perhaps.

Again, the spider could undoubtedly take down a hisser, but wouldn't a lot go to waste, insofar as what the definition of "waste"might be? My thought is that the end result would be a spider that refused food for quite a while, plus a rather large bolus that may or may not have been fully consumed before becoming a bolus.

Disclaimer. I am unfamiliar with the H. gigas species, their feeding habits, or even their maximum size. For all I know, they may be able to take down a guinea pig and want another one afterwards. Also, I could have misunderstood his intentions, maybe he in fact desires to get them breeding and plans to rear suitably-sized roaches to use as feeders. Which was my intent for his purposes when I offered a pair of adults.
 

PidderPeets

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After my A. avic had her first molt in my care, I struggled getting her to eat anything. She refused crickets (which is what the previous owner fed her exclusively), superworms, dubias, even hornworms. After well over a month and a bit of desperation, I offered her an adult hisser. It was the only thing she took, and she took it with gusto.

She left a mess of inedible parts and quite the bolus, but she ate the whole thing. I ended up feeding her hissers exclusively for quite some time after that until she finally accepted other feeders. Obviously I fed her much less often, but the results were always the same until she started getting chunky (which was also when she finally started to accept smaller feeders).

She's an adult female and was roughly 5" at the time. So I'd say if she could finish an adult hisser, an H. gigas could easily as well.
 

Cyriocosmus

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I've been feeding my AF A. seemanni small adult hissers (in my colony they come in "very big adult females" and "smaller adult males") and it was no problem. She pretty much ate them completely. Tbh, sometimes it feels like they're rather a snack for her. But maybe I just have an usually piggy spider.
 

DomGom TheFather

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There is nothing wrong with feeding hissers to appropriately sized t's.
They are big sturdy roaches so they struggle a lot and the hissing can make it a little sad to watch, though.
Also, very large meals usually end up causing a fast over time if offered frequently... At least in my house.
 

Olan

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Definitely overkill. Hissers are huge.
 

fatalgecko

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It will be fine for it to eat it, however your friend needs to have the mentality that it may get really full and could send it into a fast so may not eat anything for a little bit. I’ve seen posts where people fed their T large prey, ask why it isn’t eating for the past month, and send a pic of a chunky T.
 

Tim Benzedrine

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Ah. Well, I was posing the question less than "Will it harm the tarantula?" and more "Would the spider be able to eat an entire hisser?" Because, I realize that the tarantula will not eat until it explodes and that it would only be likely to go on an extended fast.
I was also just wondering, after looking at the abdomen of my somewhere between 6 and 7 " LP and realizing that some of my hissers have around the same mass probably, would the hisser be entirely consumed? I also took into consideration that a good percentage of the mass is the exo-skleton. But sheesh, just the softer portion of the abdomen of the bigger hissers seems like an enormous meal to me.

Personally, I won't feed mine off unless it would be the babies that have reached cricket size or larger, I took them on as pets. Started with two, now an in the 20's.
If the population gets too out of control, I might consider selling some for people to do whichever they want, feeders or pets.
 
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