- Joined
- Feb 22, 2013
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- 3,292
I'm looking forward to this discussion!
So here's the deal. I've always followed the caveat that one should not feed a tarantula directly after rehousing. Opinions vary, but the general consensus seems to be waiting about a week after a rehoused before feeding. Well, after my last expo, I decided that it was a great time to run an experiment.
I walked away with 8 spiders, and I fed 7 of them mere hours after the rehouse (one was clearly in early premolt). The results? Every single one of them ate without hesitation. Several weren't even what you'd call skinny. So, not only did they eat, but I also found that they all settled in much quicker than what has been typical for me in the past. The C. fimbriatus already made web tubes by morning, the A. seemanni started burrowing, the P. striata webbed everything, and so on. The only exception to that statement is my H. gigas, who has yet to begin burrowing for some reason.
So tell me, what are your thoughts on this? Certainly no harm can come from a T eating directly after a rehouse, so at the end of the day this point might be moot. However, it's an interesting tidbit of husbandry. How long do you wait before feeding? Why? What do you say to the anecdotal experiment I ran?
So here's the deal. I've always followed the caveat that one should not feed a tarantula directly after rehousing. Opinions vary, but the general consensus seems to be waiting about a week after a rehoused before feeding. Well, after my last expo, I decided that it was a great time to run an experiment.
I walked away with 8 spiders, and I fed 7 of them mere hours after the rehouse (one was clearly in early premolt). The results? Every single one of them ate without hesitation. Several weren't even what you'd call skinny. So, not only did they eat, but I also found that they all settled in much quicker than what has been typical for me in the past. The C. fimbriatus already made web tubes by morning, the A. seemanni started burrowing, the P. striata webbed everything, and so on. The only exception to that statement is my H. gigas, who has yet to begin burrowing for some reason.
So tell me, what are your thoughts on this? Certainly no harm can come from a T eating directly after a rehouse, so at the end of the day this point might be moot. However, it's an interesting tidbit of husbandry. How long do you wait before feeding? Why? What do you say to the anecdotal experiment I ran?