Best care practices for Olios Giganteus

[Hak Foo]

Every year or two, we get a big handsome huntsman rambling through the house, which is a cause of great celebration. I break out the DSLR and take blurry photos, and the family regularly announces where they find them. If they get too brazen, as in crawling down low enough where the dog might poke at them or get stepped on, we usually take them outside.

This year, I got her in a cup and planned to take her out when it had cooled down for the night. As a lark, I gave her a mealworm to see if she'd eat. Of course, she did, so now we've decided she's domesticated and needs to be cared for. Off to the Petsmart for supplies...

I've got her in a 'Medium' size Critter Keeper with some notebook paper at the bottom and a small hide, for the moment.

Here's my concerns:

* Food: We have mealworms from herp pets available, but is that suitable as a sole diet? We can also get small crickets that are about the same size, but I'm suspecting that anything that's being sold in packs of 12 or 25 are more than she'll need. How often to feed? Will they leave unwanted food or eat until sick?
*Climate: I'm assuming she's comfortalble with indoor heat (~25-30c, air conditioned) and humidity (well, dry, it's Arizona) levels, since this is her natural stomping ground. I figured I'd put a bottle cap in the enclosure with some water, and maybe mist.
* Airflow: The cage has a top with a lot of slats, but do they want meshy enclosures with through breezes?
* Enclosure size: There's some concern she won't have the room to stalk and hunt, but does she need a large roaming area if her needs are being taken care of?
* Enrichment: I figure the paper on the floor lets her identify a "bottom", and the hide gives her a place to escape being seen, but anything else? I was pondering a branch to let her have some climbing opportunities other than the side of the enclosure.

I know on the last two points, there's a tradeoff between "spartan tiny enclosure" and "she disappears and we can never find her".

Her legspan is about the size of a US 50 cent coin now.

 

[egyptiancrow]

Thank you for giving me a size reference. that is very important for any questions.
huntsman need an enclosure that will allow them to molt from the cieling. it needs to be at least 3 times their leg span length from the top to the floor they would land on, preferably more so they can comfortably molt.

you dont need to worry about her knowing the floor. she will map out the enclosure with webbing and remember it.
use decor that is a different color from her, like dark wood for a lighter spider, or unnatural colors if you want to. she will benefit a lot from multiple places to hide and stalk prey.

They do prefer cross ventilation. You can easily make holes in the sides with a soldering iron or drill, i prefer a soldering iron myself and it was very cheap. but you will need her out of it to make any adjustments....
you can alternately just get her a bigger enclosure with holes already, like from arachnidshop or tarantula cribs.

an enclosure for any wandering spider should be at least 3-5 times their leg span in both directions. if you SEE her active and walking around a lot, then give her more than that. my tropical huntsman that is arboreal and not as active is in a 5x5x7. if she walked a lot more id put her in a much larger enclosure, but she prefers to rest on the underside of her bark.

mealworms are just fine. its always a treat to vary their diet. you should if you can. but mealworms are a fine staple. you could look into fly spikes/maggots and small (very small) hornworms as well as crickets. hornworms are good for hydration, not a staple at all but its a good treat.

they WILL EAT ANYTHING. my huntsman stuff themselves silly if i let them. they even eat multiple mealworms at once.
feed until the abdomen is a bit bigger than her entire head section. notice how long it takes to shrink down to the same size or smaller than her head section. she should be fed in accordance to her hunger. with spiders its nice and easy to just visually tell if she blows up a LOT in the butt, shes eating a little too much, which can lead to impaction. i only let my gravid adult females overeat a tiny bit because they are spending nutrients to make eggs.

make sure youre spritzing the wall so she can drink as well. you dont need a water dish at all, just mist the enclosure with her drinking water semi regularly. youre right in that she shouldnt need too much humidity. you can put some spaghnum moss and water it too, if you want to go with a more bioactive aproach.

 

[Hak Foo]

Figured I'd drop a followup. Added a little succulent to give her more places to explore and hide, and she's eaten a few times. This evening, she moulted!

Currently she seems to be crawling around it very intensely-- do they try to eat bits of the moult?

 

[HooahArmy]

do they try to eat bits of the moult?

Yep, they sure do! Many invertebrates do too, especially spiders. Whenever my spider friends molt, I try my best to keep their shell (exuviate) with them in their enclosure since many eat it to recover the energy and nutrients lost during a molt. Folks always say its cool to quickly recover and keep an shed exoskeleton (for reasons other than sexing), but I personally feel as if the creatures may need it more. Having them recover after a molt is much more important to me than having a near exuviate for me to show off. Removing the exuviate too soon after a molt can also cause the invert to be stressed and possibly injure themselves.
Feel free to leave their shed in; you can recover it once your pal has hardened up and doesn't seem to want to eat it anymore.