can you feed red knee tarantula canned crickets?

[ArachnetArtemis]

If I get a vibrating dish to simulate movement could I theoretically feed canned crickets. As I feed them all the time to my leopard geckos and want red knee tarantula and wondering if canned would be fine.

 

[skippydude]

Forget about the vibrating dish, unless you want to traumatize your baby

Most tarantulas, especially slings, have no problem eating pre-killed prey

 

[scorpionchaos]

These are insanely vibration sensitive animals totally rely on it to hunt. There for a giant vibrating dish will drive you tarantula to death and more likely scare him then anything else. best bet it to just throw in a live cricket or toss in a cricket you just killed. Trust me those canned bugs smell a lot worse than a cricket keeper with a few residents in it.

 

[z32upgrader]

The vibrating dish will most likely scare your T away or if it's really hungry it'll attack the dish possibly damaging a fang. You can animate the crickets by twirling a long piece of grass next to the cricket or just drop it from height. Why can't you just feed live? That's half the fun!

 

[ArachnetArtemis]

I already use canned for other pets so it's just conveint plus mom's against live food. Also canned smell like hickory sticks to me... I can try using something to simulate movement.
I use Fluker's Gourmet Style Crickets for my leopard geckos..

 

[Poec54]

Canned crickets, my favorite snack food! Good for you too.

 

[Python]

Aren't those canned crix freeze dried?

 

[Poec54]

When my spiders are hungry (especially post molt) they'll often take dead/dying crickets if I either toss them on the spider's legs (and it thinks a jumping insect ran into it) or holding it by the leg with forceps and touching the spider's palps or front legs. I don't like using forceps/tongs with larger spiders, as they can break a fang on the metal in the ensuing commotion (they often try to take everything, cricket & forceps both).

 

[ArachnetArtemis]

No there not freeze dried there moist and juice, fat and gut loaded before being canned

 

[Poec54]

No there not freeze dried there moist and juice, fat and gut loaded before being canned

Stop, you're making me hungry.

 

[Misty Day]

mom's against live food.

Not to sound rude, but why do you even have a tarantula if you are trying to stimulate live food? When it gets older, it won't touch prekilled.

 

[ArachnetArtemis]

XD and that's how you sell crickets, I'll try doing what you said and if doesn't work out I probably be able to get live meal worms since my mom wasn't completely against them but rather them if possible eat canned as she would be OK picking them up her self plus pretty sure she doesn't want to carry live bugs in her purse.
Don't have a tarantula. .. I want to get one. plus everyone said leopard geckos won't touch prekilled food when older but I never had an issue

 

[MarkmD]

Thats like a lions not hunting (just feeding on dead pray) yet lions like to/born to hunt as natural instincts to them, T's are the same, they will eat dead pray (better fresh) but thayr instincts tell them to hunt and eat, Yes canned may work??, but never better than live or freshly dead. just as we human's would always eat dead/cooked pray/live stalk but we began as Hunter gathers, in many cases we still hunt.

 

[korg]

When it gets older, it won't touch prekilled.

This isn't necessarily true... I have fed prekilled to adults many times.

 

[BobGrill]

This isn't necessarily true... I have fed prekilled to adults many times.

As a general rule it is true. Please we're trying to educate someone here who obviously has no idea what they're doing. This is not the time to contradict or give misinformation. It'll only confuse him further.

Op don't get a tarantula if you can't use live prey. Mealworms aren't good to use as a staple feeder either.

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Kat Fenix]

Whyyyyyy would you use a gross can of crickets when live crickets are super cheap and readily available? I hate the smell of live crickets and the canned stuff just makes me chuke.
I honestly don't trust canned stuff for ANYTHING. All of my reptiles and tarantulas get live prey [except for the snakes]. You never know what leeches into the crickets from the can, to be honest. And sometimes you have no idea how long they have just been sitting on the shelf.

Just healthier for your animals to buy live.

 

[korg]

As a general rule it is true. Please we're trying to educate someone here who obviously has no idea what they're doing. This is not the time to contradict or give misinformation. It'll only confuse him further.

Op don't get a tarantula if you can't use live prey. Mealworms aren't good to use as a staple feeder either.

I had forgotten that this was the time to give misinformation AND be condescending... thanks for reminding me with your great post, Bob.

I'm actually not spreading misinformation, I'm describing my own experiences. A lot of times people here spout off hobby "truths" without acknowledging that reality is a bit more complicated than some blanket statement about this or that being bad in some unverified/unspecific way. Your comment about mealworms is another good example of that phenomenon. I (and many other keepers) have raised slings from 2i to mature adult on a 99% mealworm diet and never encountered any problems with using mealworms as a staple feeder. I'm not going to treat the OP like an idiot and assume he/she can't handle a bit of nuance and make their own decisions based on complete information.

 

[Smokehound714]

they really dont care. No spider does. If they come across a dead insect, they will eat it.


Spiders, as a general rule, are opportunistic by nature, and cannot afford to pass up an easy meal in most cases. Tarantulas, being arthropods, do not have the same kind of circulatory system that vertebrates possess, and as a result, do not suffer from obesity like vertebrates do. A mealworm-exclusive diet is very bad for reptiles, mammals, and birds, but completely safe for arthropoda.

Tarantulas have chemoreceptors on each foot. If they're walking, and they step on a dead insect, they will know it's a dead insect and will eat it, should they happen to be hungry.

 

[cold blood]

I (and many other keepers) have raised slings from 2i to mature adult on a 99% mealworm diet and never encountered any problems with using mealworms as a staple feeder.

Here's a bit from "Tarantulas and other arachnids" regarding mealworms:

"There was a time, not long ago, when the humble mealworm was all we had to feed captive spiders....The only drawback is that they are not very active and therefore not as attractive to spiders for food. They have a way of slowly crawling out of sight (or should I say touch) of the spider. They are a fine food source..."
Regarding superworms : "[superworms] are an excellent food source for larger spiders."

I've noticed the same...not all t's will eat them, but for those that do, its a big meaty, easy meal. When I do feed a superworm or part, it seems to fatten them up a lot and I generally skip a feed or two after. Significantly larger meal than a large cricket from what I can tell.

 

[LordWaffle]

I am so sick of those Chinese canned crickets putting good, honest American cricket factories out of business!

OP, mealworms are an okay food source. The big drawback to them is that your tarantula may not like them. Sometimes they just don't illicit a feeding response, and generally if they don't take them right away, the mealworm will end up burrowing into the substrate never to be seen until it emerges as a beetle. If your mother has a problem with the fact that predators eat prey, then the thing for you to do is to wait until you don't have to worry about her silly ideas about the immorality of the food chain. AKA the day when you move out.