Force Feeding Idea's?

[SouthernStyle]

I've not seen my Blondi eat in a couple weeks now so I'm looking for a couple ideas on the best way to force feed her....I've got a couple pinky's left (since she's about 8", they should work) and a bunch of Fat Dubai's....Any sugguestions?

 

[Alice]

for an 8" blondi, a few weeks of not eating are no problem whatsoever (if her abdomen is a healthy size). i wouldn't even try to force feed her - plus, there is no way to make a t eat if she doesn't want to.

does she have broken fangs or some other physilogical reason for not eating? then you can try to mush up crickets and put them to her mouth. some ts will eat the mush if hungry and unable to kill their own prey. this does not apply to voluntary feeding pauses!

if your t is healthy, she knows when to eat and when not to, so leave her alone. you can offer her food once a week, when she is hungry, she will take it.

 

[SouthernStyle]

And The way it looks to me is That her abdomen is kinda starting to shrivle...It was fine when I got her (she came from a store here in town, definatly a W/C female) I Did just now get her to snag a roach, but I'm not sure if she's eating it, or just holding it for safe keeping.... ::sighs::

 

[Alice]

oh, ok, wc is another matter entirely, especially if her abdomen is shrinking. i don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but all the healthy wcs i ever got started eating greedily right away. so maybe she's got parasites or something? have you checked her for external parasites? if there are internal ones, there is nothing you can do.

but maybe she is just stressed out and will recover. if you got her to grab a roach that's a beginning. have you checked that her fangs are ok so she could definitely eat it if she wanted to? and is she properly hydrated? a shriveling abdomen is often a sign of dehydration. i got a wc juvie once (cyriopagopus though) that didn't drink from a dish at first. i got her to drink by misting heavily.

 

[green_bottle_04]

id say shes eating the dubia. blondi's really dont kill then leave it alone. does she have ample enough water?

 

[Brian S]

I highly doubt that there is anyway to force feed a tarantula like you can a snake.

 

[cacoseraph]

if there was a way it would probably involved pureed crickets/roaches and a relatively narrow tipped plastic syringe

the problem i see is that tarantulas have a microfilter protecting their mouth so they can essentially only ingest liquids, and rather slowly at that... so i would not be surprised if you had to inject at something like a cubic millimeter per minute or something like that. plus, i'm not sure what turns their sucking stomach on so you might just fill it's "crop" and then over flow if the sucker won't turn on

lol, perhaps one day someone will develop a method of tubing spiders for force feeding, like we do with humans

 

[Talkenlate04]

Well hopefully its not a parsite, WC can harbor things that are unknown in the hobby even today. Id say the best you can do is make sure there is a big full water dish and try different food items once a day or so. Post a picture i am curious as to the condition of the T. Shriveled abdomen is not something alot of us get to see to often.....

 

[Dilbrain]

How long have you had the Blondi ?
Any recent photo's ?

 

[phil jones]

good luck with it but it not sounding to good some times you just want to to pull your hair out :wall: :wall: -- phil

 

[guitarlust]

if there was a way it would probably involved pureed crickets/roaches and a relatively narrow tipped plastic syringe

the problem i see is that tarantulas have a microfilter protecting their mouth so they can essentially only ingest liquids, and rather slowly at that... so i would not be surprised if you had to inject at something like a cubic millimeter per minute or something like that. plus, i'm not sure what turns their sucking stomach on so you might just fill it's "crop" and then over flow if the sucker won't turn on

lol, perhaps one day someone will develop a method of tubing spiders for force feeding, like we do with humans

lol, that would be freakin' hysterical. having all of these Ts with tubes hanging out of their mouths. that made my day. lol

 

[syndicate]

yeah some photos of the spider in question could be helpful.as long as shes still drinking water and is not looking to skinny i wouldnt worry.could possibly be pre-molt?good luck man

 

[SouthernStyle]

Photo's of Her are in my Thread, I took a couple a few weeks back, but nothing recently...Her Abdomen is Looking MUCH better though, it's not shrivled up at all, and she's completely devoured the roach. Plenty of Water in her Enclosure, she has a pretty large water dish and it stays pretty humid, So We'll just hope for the best...I'll post a couple pix of her later on this evening if I can

 

[Mr.Extreme]

help

my tarantula hasnt ben eating ither her odmen looks smaller shes not moving much shes been in the corner for 2 days now it started yesterday when i brought her to school for my science teacher and before school started shes been in the corner and shes still in the corner i put wet papper towels around her and big holes heres a picture