Feeding your tarantula a lot..?

[Shayna]

I was going to do this with my sling but its abdomen is now 5 times bigger than its carapace and I'm scared it will burst. lol.

 

[Sheazy]

Hmm...I guess it's a good thing I asked. I was feeding my sling 3 or 4 pinheads on a friday, and then another 2 or 3 that sunday. I thought I was overfeeding, but it sounds like some of you feed even more.

 

[Mushroom Spore]

i feed both my slings every day, i read that you feed them daily till they refuse a food item, then you give them a break for a few days, then try again. so far they have both just kept on eating...is this a good way to feed?

If you don't care that you're powerfeeding them and exposing them to the risks and shorter lifespan that come with it, which has been discussed in this very thread and in a thousand others easily found with "powerfeeding" in the board search function, sure.

Tarantulas are wired to eat whenever they find food, because they cannot comprehend that a human will give them free food this time next week. As far as they know, they might not see food again for three months if they don't eat this thing right here, right now. They are not starving, they're just wild animals and they "think" like wild animals do.

 

[pink'n'curly]

hey mushroom
i've read the powerfeeding comments on this thread and i must say most of the guys on here seem to look at it as a positive thing....so in your opinion what would you say the ideal feeding pattern is for a sling? (about 2cms ish)
:?

 

[Mushroom Spore]

i've read the powerfeeding comments on this thread and i must say most of the guys on here seem to look at it as a positive thing....so in your opinion what would you say the ideal feeding pattern is for a sling? (about 2cms ish)

Powerfeeding is a positive thing if you're dealing with species that are fragile as slings, I guess, or if you're running a business and need that male mature and ready for breeding ASAP. Otherwise you *are* shortening their lifespan, and there is no animal in the world that benefits from obesity, period.

Personally, I fed my slings one pre-killed smallish cricket a week (note that I couldn't get pinheads and don't have the eyesight or fine manual dexterity to wrangle them, so these were maybe half an inch), my big rosehair two adult crickets a week, and my GBB three a week.

 

[pink'n'curly]

Powerfeeding is a positive thing if you're dealing with species that are fragile as slings, I guess, or if you're running a business and need that male mature and ready for breeding ASAP. Otherwise you *are* shortening their lifespan, and there is no animal in the world that benefits from obesity, period.

Personally, I fed my slings one pre-killed smallish cricket a week (note that I couldn't get pinheads and don't have the eyesight or fine manual dexterity to wrangle them, so these were maybe half an inch), my big rosehair two adult crickets a week, and my GBB three a week.

ok, thanks for the advice, i'll spread the feeding a little more.

 

[cacoseraph]

http://www.geocities.com/blight_child/results3nestor.html
results from an abandoned experiment in powerfeeding

results inconclusive as group size dropped too low. you can kind of see how the sizes in the powerfed group are larger... but that is because they were at least a molt ahead... so results not that great. also, i had more molt dates on paper but lost them in a move... so that sucked. anyhow, this had pretty much devolved to a "demonstration of concept" rather than the experiment i was hoping for... and i summer starved the thin group and just gave up a few weeks ago. *sigh*



i started a new test group of G. rosea (24, one starved to death so already down to 23 *sigh*) and 24 control to show thin feedign slows growth... but damn results are going to be at least a decade in the making as this is the group i am trying to push to live 50+ years. lol. i almost want to do another group of power fed slings now... but i would be adapting a ~psuedo control group to this... and i would be back up to keeping track of 70+ experimental slings... which i am not too keen on.


if you are going to go through the effort of an experiment i would advise getting someone to look over your experiment plans before you start. no sense in doign a lot of work and getting no valid results at the end

 

[cacoseraph]

Powerfeeding is a positive thing if you're dealing with species that are fragile as slings, I guess, or if you're running a business and need that male mature and ready for breeding ASAP. Otherwise you *are* shortening their lifespan, and there is no animal in the world that benefits from obesity, period.

Personally, I fed my slings one pre-killed smallish cricket a week (note that I couldn't get pinheads and don't have the eyesight or fine manual dexterity to wrangle them, so these were maybe half an inch), my big rosehair two adult crickets a week, and my GBB three a week.

lol, you are powerfeeding according to my book. unless you keep all your bugs at like ~90*F or so, in which case that is about equivalent to what i feed

i feed adult tarantulas of most species right around 1/month. if they have a skinny butt i feed them a couple adult lobster roaches (N. cinerea) otherwise i feed them right around a single roach a month. i feed more in summer and less or none (depending on temps etc) during winter. if i am going to breed something i jam it full of food.