Jumping Spiders Care

[Gillian Pajor]

I'm getting new jumping spiders next week and I was wondering how to set up their cage. I want them to live happy little lives. They are babies so they aren't full adults yet so i dont want to build a cage for an adult just to have it stress them out with too many things in there. Can anyone help?

 

[Aki2470]

What specie?

 

[pandabacon]

As far as I know jumping spiders don't really need much they are pretty easy to take care of. Things that are vital are very good ventilation and fresh air, fresh water provided via either light misting daily and or piece of wet rolled up paper towel placed in enclosure and kept moist, some sunlight but not too much direct sunlight, and a day and night cycle. They also need a safe place to molt and not be disturbed during this process. Their diet is pretty standard. Flies , crickets, mealworms etc and they should be fed every other or every 2 or 3 days.

If they look fat and full they can go awhile without food but will likely eat every other day if allowed in my experience. Crickets should not be left in the enclosure if not eaten right away as they can kill and eat the spider at night if they get hungry. Uneaten food should generally be removed as it can stress the spider out. I like to keep my enclosures clean of discarded bug parts immediatley but that's probably not totally necessary. You probably will want to clean the entire enclosure once every 2 weeks? It's not necessary but they leave a lot of webbing when they move around and their waste does slowly build up over time.

Depending how big the babies are you may need to try different food to see what they take. Adult and wild caught will eat anything their size and slightly larger usually. Do not mist directly on the babies but around them or where they will travel and don't use too much water they can drown easily when they are small.

I have a baby Phidippus Audax that is doing well in a clear glass cookie jar. I used aquarium pebbles as substrate and then put twigs and pieces of bark upright all along the edges of the jar so it has plenty of surface to climb. I also added some sort of dried leaves from my backyard that are very water resistant to the floor as leaf litter. The jar is one of the circular ones that can sit upright or tilted and has a screw on lid. I ventilated the lid very well. I washed all the twigs and bark and leaves from outside to remove any of the mites and outside hitchikers and then dried them before putting them in the enclosure. I lightly mist the enclosure in the morning and the leaves usually hold droplets for most of the day. I noticed if you have a lot of places to perch up off the ground they will prefer to stay off the ground during the day but they watch the ground for movement and food. Catching flies with a cup is pretty easy once you practice and then you just pop them in the freezer for 4 minutes and they will goto sleep. This gives you around 2 minutes to clip their wings and throw them in the enclosure. If your jumper is hungry it will plan out an attack and hunt the fly once it sees it which is usually pretty quick if you set up their enclosure this way.


They are really fun and really easy to keep as far as I have experienced. Just keep them out of direct sunlight for extended periods of time and don't let the enclosure heat up too much and provide plenty of ventilation and some water and they will thrive. They are really fun and interactive as well if they learn not to fear you. Even wild caught ones can be tamed and will just watch you as you mess around in their enclosure or actively jump on you.