Eek! Pinheads! Sling has cricketphobia!

[greensleeves]

Poor Bungee, my avic. geroldi sling, is terrified of the pinhead crickets I've been giving him. He won't eat them live.

I made the mistake of giving him a live one and he scampered away, nearly falling over himself to get away from the 'menace'. His behaviour kind of reminded me of the cartoons where the elephant is afraid of the mouse.

I talked to the guy I got him from to try and figure out what his habits were. Apparently Bungee was used to eating 1/4 inch crickets live, but with their jumping legs pulled off. I find it hard to imagine that he would be afraid of smaller prey and yet would take on something 1/3 his body size. (He's 3/4 inches)

Also, Bungee hasn't molted in the guy's care (2 weeks - he was an import) so perhaps he's due for a molt? He's eaten one or two dead pinheads since Saturday, possibly three, although his abdomen still looks about the average, healthy size it was when he arrived.

His bum doesn't look at all black/bald, and his legs are still nice and pink, but I've read that sometimes slings show no physical signs they're about to molt. But looking at his skinny little legs I find it hard to believe that there is a bigger spider in there waiting to get out any time soon.

I've been giving him dead pinheads overnight and they're usually eaten by morning, so that seems to work, but when will he get an urge to hunt or take crickets from my tweezers instead of freaking out?

Greensleeves

 

[sunnymarcie]

Some of our babies are like that.
Given a few more molts, he will suprise you

 

[TheDon]

My 1/2" Lasiodora Parahybana runs away from the pinheads sometimes but I know he can take them down no problem because when he was 1/4" he would take them out no problem. So i just left the pinhead in with it and i figured if he didnt wanna be near it he could climb the wall a bit and the pinhead would still be on the ground. Well to say the least when i went in about an hour later he was happily munching down on the cricket that an hour before he had been running away from.

And also yes it is sometimes good to take the jumping legs off as that does make them a little slower and easier to catch. Easiest way to do this is catch them then toss them into a cup of water and that makes them easier to catch, then take tweezers and squeeze the back legs and the cricket will drop it off. Hope this helps

peace

TheDon

 

[greensleeves]

Originally posted by TheDon
And also yes it is sometimes good to take the jumping legs off as that does make them a little slower and easier to catch. Easiest way to do this is catch them then toss them into a cup of water and that makes them easier to catch, then take tweezers and squeeze the back legs and the cricket will drop it off. Hope this helps

That's a good tip! I've been sticking my crickets in the fridge to make them sluggish and then doing whatever needed doing. They're hyper little guys alright. I don't know how many times I ended up 'wearing' one as I was trying to feed.

I think maybe I will give Bungee a slightly larger live cricket minus jumping legs and see what he does with it. It would certainly be easier if he ate one and was full for awhile instead of popping down several pinheads. I want to encourage him to molt fairly soon as it will be his first molt and I'm nervous about it so I want to get it over with.

Greensleeves

 

[greensleeves]

Originally posted by sunnymarcie
Some of our babies are like that.
Given a few more molts, he will suprise you

How big were your slings when they became more proactive hunters?

Greensleeves

 

[sunnymarcie]

They all became good hunters at about the 7th molt
except for my Chaco's they are younger. Each one of them is
less than an inch and can take down a cricket equal in size.