is a mostly invertebrate diet healthy?

[Gillian]

Hi all,
Is a mostly invertebrate diet healthy? It seems that, it takes a outrageous amount of crickets to sate my blondi's appetite..Not to mention, my pulchra looks so much better with a pinkie in her...
Peace,
Gillian

 

[MrT]

Originally posted by Gillian
Hi all,
Is a mostly invertebrate diet healthy? It seems that, it takes a outrageous amount of crickets to sate my blondi's appetite..Not to mention, my pulchra looks so much better with a pinkie in her...
Peace,
Gillian

Gillian,
I dont know for sure, but I've been told by some, that its not.They said it would be like you or me eating steak for every meal. Plus, it speeds up their life cycle, so they dont live as long.
I limit mine to pinky treats, once in a while. But thats just me.

Ernie

 

[petitegreeneyes]

Hi Gillian,
I agree with Mr.T. I give mine a fuzzy once in a while and I buy the biggest crickets I can get. I can sure tell ya some of the crickets are so big that they stab me with the thing coming out of their bottom half.

 

[Lasiodora]

Try keeping the diet varied. Throw in some earthworms or super mealworms. This should satisfy your blondis hunger.
Mike

 

[Mojo Jojo]

Maybe some madagascar hissing cockroaches or otheer large roaches. Maybe a parakeet or a finch? They are refered to as bird eating spiders after all...

BD

 

[pategirl]

Parakeets and finches would make expensive meals....

 

[Vys]

Not to mention it would probably make me want to asphyxiate my spider if I gave one to it. Or myself.
Varied invertebrates has to be healthy? Of course, no one knows. So I'll go on believing just that.
Anyway, I'm sorry if this post seems a bit trollish, but sometimes I get a bit disgruntled reading about what/how people give their T's (as) prey.

 

[Gillian]

Don't worry about the trollish part. I was told giving my Ball Python Gerbils would increase his appetite. To date, he has not had a single one. Sorry, I have to draw the line somewhere.

Peace,
Gillian

 

[MrT]

Originally posted by Gillian
Don't worry about the trollish part. I was told giving my Ball Python Gerbils would increase his appetite. To date, he has not had a single one. Sorry, I have to draw the line somewhere.

Peace,
Gillian

Richard Gear thanks you.:} :}

Ernie

 

[Gillian]

Originally posted by MrT
Richard Gear thanks you.:} :}

Ernie

*LMAO*

Peace,
Gillian

 

[Code Monkey]

I doubt very much that vertebrate prey is necessary for a T to be healthy. When I was younger I was very much against feeding vertebrates to Ts and I never saw a single sign they were unhealthy - and this was over a period of more than 15 years. On the other hand, anymore, I do feed frozen pinkies to freshly moulted Ts because it fattens them up much easier than crickets. For a blondi you probably can't afford enough crickets to fill that thing up so it's either going to be roaches or mice.

The people who point out that Ts eat anything they come across that figuratively fits in their mouth are right. On the other hand, if they actually needed anything specialised in their diet, they surely would evolved to capture it instead of being such random opportunists. Other than needing animal prey of some sort, I don't think it matters whether it's all crickets and grasshoppers, pinkies and rat pups, or a mixture from every genera that occurs in the wild with them. Feed'em what you want.

 

[Gillian]

thanks

Thanks everyone, for all the opinions...

Peace,
Gillian

 

[Bob the thief]

Last week I successfuly fed my blondi a chunk of very very expensive meat i was cooking. (i placed it under her palps)
Im a bit sqemish with feeding anything about the size of a mouse...
In fact im terriyed of mice

Oh and after alot of trys I once got my Golden chaco to eat a raw shrimp i made jump around on a string.

 

[Vys]

Originally posted by monantony

Why? Do you find a T's diet offensive? They will eat just about anything they come across in the wild, so not feeding them vertebrate prey is only for our own squeemish beneift. I feel like I am betraying a fellow mammal sometimes when I do,but variety is the spice of life, even for a T.
Everything in moderation I always say, including pinkies n finches .Now that I have T's too feed em to, that line no longer raises eyebrows at parties..;-)
Tony

Unless it's for 'fattening them up', as stated, you might as well feed them different invertebrates. Or the same kind of invertebrates, eventhough that might feel dull.

A dancing raw shrimp now...that I have to try

 

[arachnopunks]

Most of our spiders get invert. prey most of the time. We will throw in an occasional ferrell anole and our larger ones sometimes will get a pinky. I cannot see keeping an adult T. blondi a 100% invert. diet unless you have a good source of large insects. Feeding crickets to our T. blondi seems like we are giving him popcorn. His fangs are bigger than the crickets. I personally do not enjoy feeding pinkies to him, but since it is really the best way to feed him so we do it. Sometimes it hardly seems fair to put something in there knowing it will become prey and has no chance of escaping, but is it really more cruel for a vertibrate and it is for an invertabrate?? IMO, the ends justify the means.

-Jill

 

[Venom]

I have raised my E. murinus solely on a diet of crickets since it was a 1 inch baby , it's now 3" and is completely healthy. But I feed my crickets on high quality dog food ( the same as my dog eats, lol ) and lettuce and other random veggies, so if a 50+ pound adult dog can be perfectly healthy on a diet of dogfood ( and some food from the table.......) and since the T gets whatever nutrition you put into the crickets, I don't see why a tarantula can't thrive on well fed crix. Mine do.

( unless , of course it IS something like a blondi, or another v / large T , and crickets are just too small . )