Day old chicks

[ricneto]

I have been wondering if someone have fed T's with day old chicks and I finally conviced myself to ask it after seeing the pic of the parahybana eating one (not sure about the spwcies :? )
They are less reach in calcium than a mouse so they are probably better for T's as I read somewhere that too much calcium can cause moult problems.

 

[Drachenjager]

I have been wondering if someone have fed T's with day old chicks and I finally conviced myself to ask it after seeing the pic of the parahybana eating one (not sure about the spwcies :? )
They are less reach in calcium than a mouse so they are probably better for T's as I read somewhere that too much calcium can cause moult problems.

You COULD , but why? unless you have a huge T it wont be able to eat that much before it spoils, and there is no need to feed vertibrates of any kind . Not to mention the nasty bloody mess it would make. and all the other reasons not to. you are better off raising the chicks and eating them when they get to about 3 pounds or more lol

 

[Merfolk]

A bit better, but not that much since they really don't eat that many birds in the wild. Their organism is not made to digest warm blooded preys; they can, but will remain bloated for weeks (frogs and lizards on the other hand are seemingly way easier to digest, and plenty of T,s have been seen eating them)

BTW it is a parahybana on that pic. I think once or twice a year would do no harm but no more, and it's not realy needed. Roaches, crix, frogs and lizards once a month, pinkie (or assorted size bigger mouse for the giants) a few times a year but no more.

 

[Talkenlate04]

This is a blanket statement for all those who wonder if a T can take a bird, or a squirrel, or a rat, or a donkey,
Just because they in theory might be able to or can kill the prey item you are thinking of offering does that mean you should give them one?

Just thinking of the smell of large prey like that (gag) that would be messy beyond all belief. It would seep into the soil, cause mites and mold.

I digress; you can keep you T perfectly healthy on prey items much smaller and cleaner. You can feed them roaches, worms of different sorts, crickets. But once you get into other inverts and mammals, I think you have officially lost track of why you are keeping your Ts.

 

[cacoseraph]

come on folks... leave morality to church and stuff. plus, it isn't even particularily well thought out or objective morality. i do not like to feed live pinkies to my spiders, but do it because i believe that it helps my breeding efforts. to think you automatically know *why* someone is doing something is arrogance of a level even *i* am not too familiar with!


i can't see a chick being anything but a mess waiting to happen. tarantulas can and will eat pinkies (live, which sucks if you are at all soft hearted, as i am, or frozen thawed) and with appropriate (read: small) sized pinkies given to largish tarantulas there is not going to be any mess.


the facts we have at our disposal indicate that large tarantulas, NW, OW and OZ, *do* eat verts in nature, but it is probably not even close to their calorie mainstay. there is some really rough anecdotal evidence about calcium being deletorious in too high of levels... but it is not ironed out enough to be even close to fact.

 

[Talkenlate04]

come on folks... leave morality to church and stuff.

Who said anything about any of that?

All I was getting at is it seems like the people that ask questions like this are looking for an entertainment value. Even this guy, he admits he is curious only cause he saw a picture of someone else doing it.I have yet to see a post asking the nutritional value of a chicken baby, or a gecko, or an anole. They just want to see if it can be killed by a T.

And yes they can eat all those prey items. I never said they could not. But why would you feed those items if you did not have to?

i do not like to feed live pinkies to my spiders, but do it because i believe that it helps my breeding efforts.

Do you have any proof of this? Just curious not saying you are wrong in your thoughts but some actual proof of this would be of use.

 

[Drachenjager]

the facts we have at our disposal indicate that large tarantulas, NW, OW and OZ, *do* eat verts in nature, but it is probably not even close to their calorie mainstay.

Right, even smaller NW Ts like the A. hentzi eat gekos, anoles, small snakes, and skinks in the wild. I have seen this.

there is some really rough anecdotal evidence about calcium being deletorious in too high of levels... but it is not ironed out enough to be even close to fact.

I bolded the main part i wanted to comment on here but the entire part there is crucial to understand the context, which is truly lacking in many discussions these days lol now back to business. This (and im not picking on you at all Andrew, I think many of us do this.) is something we need to get straight here. The FACT that its not ironed out enough has no bearing on calcium being a factor in bad molts is a fact or not. Our ability to have sufficient proof dosent matter. An example:
I tell you my name is Gary. You have absoultly no proof that this is true.
or you dont have enough proof that it is to be able to tell others with certianty that its true.
Now if i lied and said my name was Gary , but it really is Bill, then your lack or proof really has no bearing in it being the truth or not. and if i did tell teh truth (my name really is Gary) Your lack of proof, really makes no differance. Becuse if you choose to not believe my name is Gary based on lack of evidence, you have chosen to not believe the Fact that my name is Gary.

SO lack of proof is not an indicator of IF something is fact, just an indicator of IF WE should STATE it as fact.
In other words, if Birds did evolve from Dinosaurs but do not have enough proof to convict someone of murder(enough proof to give take away reasonable doubt) then we are not at liberty to state as FACT that this happened even if if did. We are at liberty to say that we believe, we think or we have some indication that this happened.

SO back to the calcium thing, We have enough evidence to state that high calicum MAY be a factor in bad molts, or we think, or believe it does. OR we have antedoctial evidence it does. We can not say for a FACT it does. BUT , this dosent mean it is not fact, just that we cant say it is for sure.

HMMM
And yes Andrew, this really has noting to do with YOU saying this. I have alterior motives. Actually practicing for something entirely differant from this discussion but it does fit lol

 

[ricneto]

Who said anything about any of that?

All I was getting at is it seems like the people that ask questions like this are looking for an entertainment value. Even this guy, he admits he is curious only cause he saw a picture of someone else doing it.I have yet to see a post asking the nutritional value of a chicken baby, or a gecko, or an anole. They just want to see if it can be killed by a T.

And yes they can eat all those prey items. I never said they could not. But why would you feed those items if you did not have to?


Do you have any proof of this? Just curious not saying you are wrong in your thoughts but some actual proof of this would be of use.

I was not curious just because I want to see if a T can kill it. I am sure it would. I would just feed it if I was going to breed a female. I can't see how feeding a day old chick can be more messy than feeding a rodent but then I never fed mice to my T.

And no, I do not have any interest in feeding vertebrate or large prey to my t if I do not need to.

The other reason I asked this is because egg layers are wormed and therefore will not have nematodes (or shouldn't) and the day old chick will definitely not have them.

And no, I do not have any information on the nutritional value of crickets or roaches but that information for a day old chick should be easy to find out.

Thanks everyone for the replies:worship:

It is good to be able to count with more experienced people to avoid commiting the same mistakes

 

[cacoseraph]

Who said anything about any of that?

All I was getting at is it seems like the people that ask questions like this are looking for an entertainment value. Even this guy, he admits he is curious only cause he saw a picture of someone else doing it.I have yet to see a post asking the nutritional value of a chicken baby, or a gecko, or an anole. They just want to see if it can be killed by a T.

And yes they can eat all those prey items. I never said they could not. But why would you feed those items if you did not have to?


Do you have any proof of this? Just curious not saying you are wrong in your thoughts but some actual proof of this would be of use.

but the logical failing is that unless you specifically got into bugs with the intent of profit then by far the largest apparent reason to own them *IS* entertainment. aside from like, logistical type arguments the only pros and cons of various forms of entertainment seem to be morally based. i.e. i do not think needless suffering of animals is moral, thus i am against the pit fighting of dogs.


also, i don't have any proof that feeding a vert to a tarantula or whatever increases its fecundity. it seems a logical conclusion based on my admittedly imperfect understanding of invertebrate biology. but i have never purposefully represented it as anything but a suspicion of mine and others. the experimental "proof" of it would be hideous. absolutely hideous. especially if done in my typical soft-hearted manner. *shudders at the thought of caring for the thousands of obts such a study would generate*


also, the OP *did* make an inquiry about the nutritional advantages of chicks over mice (re: calcium)


also, don't get me wrong. i try to be a very moral person... so i don't have problems with moral arguments, per se.... i just have problems with a moral and not like, nutritional or otherwise factually based argument is sold as something else... knowingly or unknowingly.

 

[ricneto]

but the logical failing is that unless you specifically got into bugs with the intent of profit then by far the largest apparent reason to own them *IS* entertainment. aside from like, logistical type arguments the only pros and cons of various forms of entertainment seem to be morally based. i.e. i do not think needless suffering of animals is moral, thus i am against the pit fighting of dogs.


also, i don't have any proof that feeding a vert to a tarantula or whatever increases its fecundity. it seems a logical conclusion based on my admittedly imperfect understanding of invertebrate biology. but i have never purposefully represented it as anything but a suspicion of mine and others. the experimental "proof" of it would be hideous. absolutely hideous. especially if done in my typical soft-hearted manner. *shudders at the thought of caring for the thousands of obts such a study would generate*


also, the OP *did* make an inquiry about the nutritional advantages of chicks over mice (re: calcium)


also, don't get me wrong. i try to be a very moral person... so i don't have problems with moral arguments, per se.... i just have problems with a moral and not like, nutritional or otherwise factually based argument is sold as something else... knowingly or unknowingly.

Sorry but I am lost:?

what is OP?

And I am against unecessary pain to animals as well. But this is not about it. Imagine that you pre kill the chick, i am talking pure health wise.

I was just asking if someone experienced feeding day old chicks instead of pinkies or mice (dead) when trying to breed?

 

[cacoseraph]

Right, even smaller NW Ts like the A. hentzi eat gekos, anoles, small snakes, and skinks in the wild. I have seen this.




I bolded the main part i wanted to comment on here but the entire part there is crucial to understand the context, which is truly lacking in many discussions these days lol now back to business. This (and im not picking on you at all Andrew, I think many of us do this.) is something we need to get straight here. The FACT that its not ironed out enough has no bearing on calcium being a factor in bad molts is a fact or not. Our ability to have sufficient proof dosent matter. An example:
I tell you my name is Gary. You have absoultly no proof that this is true.
or you dont have enough proof that it is to be able to tell others with certianty that its true.
Now if i lied and said my name was Gary , but it really is Bill, then your lack or proof really has no bearing in it being the truth or not. and if i did tell teh truth (my name really is Gary) Your lack of proof, really makes no differance. Becuse if you choose to not believe my name is Gary based on lack of evidence, you have chosen to not believe the Fact that my name is Gary.

SO lack of proof is not an indicator of IF something is fact, just an indicator of IF WE should STATE it as fact.
In other words, if Birds did evolve from Dinosaurs but do not have enough proof to convict someone of murder(enough proof to give take away reasonable doubt) then we are not at liberty to state as FACT that this happened even if if did. We are at liberty to say that we believe, we think or we have some indication that this happened.

SO back to the calcium thing, We have enough evidence to state that high calicum MAY be a factor in bad molts, or we think, or believe it does. OR we have antedoctial evidence it does. We can not say for a FACT it does. BUT , this dosent mean it is not fact, just that we cant say it is for sure.

HMMM
And yes Andrew, this really has noting to do with YOU saying this. I have alterior motives. Actually practicing for something entirely differant from this discussion but it does fit lol

in no way did i say that calcium does or doesn't cause problems. i said that people are saying it like it is an experimentally established fact when it is, at best to my knowledge, an anecdotally advanced theory with equally weighty counter anecdotes.

also, technically, if i am understanding you... we have enough evidence to say that dinosaurs MAY still be alive today (and i'm talking apatosaurs (or brontosuars as we called them in my day) and no proof to the contrary. this highlights the fact that things can't really be proved via a lack of proof... the facile way of saying that is "absence of proof is not proof of absence"




your example has some merit... it highlights that most statements are not easily verifiable. but here is where it falls apart... whether your name is Gary or Bill doesn't matter to me... cuz i am not taking care of you or writing you checks.... BUT i do take care of spiders. so whether "resovled: too much calcium in a theraphosid's diet is deleterious" is true or not is VERY important to me.


i can already tell i am going to end up writing a venn diagram in MSpaint before the day is out hehehehe

 

[cacoseraph]

Sorry but I am lost:?

what is OP?

And I am against unecessary pain to animals as well. But this is not about it. Imagine that you pre kill the chick, i am talking pure health wise.

I was just asking if someone experienced feeding day old chicks instead of pinkies or mice (dead) when trying to breed?

OP = Original Poster

unfortunately i am almost certain that you are not going to get the nutrional data you need. there has been no experiments that i am aware of to establish the benefit to fecundity of feeding vert prey (prekilled or otherwise). we know virtually nothing about the nutritional requirements of tarantulas, so we can not make any accurate statements about optimizing nutrition. it's really quite frustrating, actually

 

[ricneto]

OP = Original Poster

unfortunately i am almost certain that you are not going to get the nutrional data you need. there has been no experiments that i am aware of to establish the benefit to fecundity of feeding vert prey (prekilled or otherwise). we know virtually nothing about the nutritional requirements of tarantulas, so we can not make any accurate statements about optimizing nutrition. it's really quite frustrating, actually

What I meant is that I can get the nutritional value of day old chick. not the nutritional needs for a T.
I have been looking for info and I did not found anything. It is a bit sad when we think about it as there are so many useless research programs everywhere (talking about some Iknow).

But thank you for the reply.
I really did not meant to flame opinions.

 

[cacoseraph]

What I meant is that I can get the nutritional value of day old chick. not the nutritional needs for a T.
I have been looking for info and I did not found anything. It is a bit sad when we think about it as there are so many useless research programs everywhere (talking about some Iknow).

But thank you for the reply.
I really did not meant to flame opinions.

i am pretty sure you can find the big nutrient yields for chicks if you look online enough... and failing that a library would have it for sure. chicks are used in so much stuff (including feeding humans) that i just can't accept that the nutrition they provide isn't quantified somewhere

but that not withstanding... even when you do find out how much calcium, niacin, vit b-12, etc a chick provides it is still valueless at this point. you have to know how much the like "daily suggested value" is for the tarantula before you can know if a chick will be better or worse at meeting the requirement. since we don't know what the DSVs for tarantulas are we can not fine optimize feeding schedules. yet. that day might come, though

 

[Talkenlate04]

also, i don't have any proof that feeding a vert to a tarantula or whatever increases its fecundity. it seems a logical conclusion based on my admittedly imperfect understanding of invertebrate biology. but i have never purposefully represented it as anything but a suspicion of mine and others. the experimental "proof" of it would be hideous. absolutely hideous. especially if done in my typical soft-hearted manner. *shudders at the thought of caring for the thousands of obts such a study would generate*

Like I said just curious. Only because I know plenty of good breeders that never feed inverts. It would be interesting to see if there was value to feeding inverts other then it being a giant meal. Which I guess is good no matter what angle to look at it.

I do agree that they can and will eat whatever they can overpower in nature based on opportunity. But nature and our households are worlds apart.

So do you feed inverts only to mothers to be? Before or after a mating? Or is it a snack to vary the diet?

 

[jen650s]

The other reason I asked this is because egg layers are wormed and therefore will not have nematodes (or shouldn't) and the day old chick will definitely not have them.

I would think that this would be a greater issue than the nutritional/humane ones. Toxins designed to worm a bird would most likely have the potential to harm a T, especially in the doses given to fowl raised commercially.

Just a thought.

 

[ricneto]

i am pretty sure you can find the big nutrient yields for chicks if you look online enough... and failing that a library would have it for sure. chicks are used in so much stuff (including feeding humans) that i just can't accept that the nutrition they provide isn't quantified somewhere

but that not withstanding... even when you do find out how much calcium, niacin, vit b-12, etc a chick provides it is still valueless at this point. you have to know how much the like "daily suggested value" is for the tarantula before you can know if a chick will be better or worse at meeting the requirement. since we don't know what the DSVs for tarantulas are we can not fine optimize feeding schedules. yet. that day might come, though

yup that's what i said I can only find the chicks nutritional value, not the T's nutritional requirements! :razz:

About the knowledge, like you said there isn't a lot of scientific knowelege but at least one article I found on the net about breeding blondi's used pinkies. I can post the link if you want.

 

[cacoseraph]

Like I said just curious. Only because I know plenty of good breeders that never feed inverts. It would be interesting to see if there was value to feeding inverts other then it being a giant meal. Which I guess is good no matter what angle to look at it.

I do agree that they can and will eat whatever they can overpower in nature based on opportunity. But nature and our households are worlds apart.

So do you feed inverts only to mothers to be? Before or after a mating? Or is it a snack to vary the diet?

i feed variously prekilled pinkies (and you have to get SMALL ones or it does make a mess) to mothers to be, 1-4 weeks before i breed them. this is in addition to getting as many other feeder species into them as possible. i have roach colonies that only get dipped into for breeding feeding. i try to make sure they get at least one wax worm, one meal worm, 4 species of roaches, and one vert before breeding them. all my feeders i try to feed as varied and safe (which is kind of cross purposes, in a sense) a diet as possible, including feeding and gutloadign with those stinky fluker orange cubes from time to time.

i used to live feed due to concerns about gut fauna and bacteria but it was wearing down my already threadbare soul to hear the little bastards die... so now i prekill (blunt force trauma to skull that liquifies most of their central nervous system) or buy frozen.


and terribly anecdotal and not in anyway to be taken as anything but a funny joke... the only female i didn't do a full premating feeding ritual to was the only female to crunch the male. there are many reasons why this doesn't actually "count" for anything... but it thought it was funny. and my superstitious self is probably never going to break my feeding rituals again hehehehe

 

[ricneto]

The other reason I asked this is because egg layers are wormed and therefore will not have nematodes (or shouldn't) and the day old chick will definitely not have them.

I would think that this would be a greater issue than the nutritional/humane ones. Toxins designed to worm a bird would most likely have the potential to harm a T, especially in the doses given to fowl raised commercially.

Just a thought.

Yep. I thought about that too. But I was thinking on organic farms. Plenty in england. Actually I could probably get the withdrawal periods for wormers in poutry to the eggs

 

[ricneto]

i feed variously prekilled pinkies (and you have to get SMALL ones or it does make a mess) to mothers to be, 1-4 weeks before i breed them. this is in addition to getting as many other feeder species into them as possible. i have roach colonies that only get dipped into for breeding feeding. i try to make sure they get at least one wax worm, one meal worm, 4 species of roaches, and one vert before breeding them. all my feeders i try to feed as varied and safe (which is kind of cross purposes, in a sense) a diet as possible, including feeding and gutloadign with those stinky fluker orange cubes from time to time.

i used to live feed due to concerns about gut fauna and bacteria but it was wearing down my already threadbare soul to hear the little bastards die... so now i prekill (blunt force trauma to skull that liquifies most of their central nervous system) or buy frozen.


and terribly anecdotal and not in anyway to be taken as anything but a funny joke... the only female i didn't do a full premating feeding ritual to was the only female to crunch the male. there are many reasons why this doesn't actually "count" for anything... but it thought it was funny. and my superstitious self is probably never going to break my feeding rituals again hehehehe

Thanks for the reply.
I am not sure, but from reading posts here I have the feeling that almost everyone feed vert prey before breeding. am I right?