My first tarantula.

Yes, they can take baby crickets. Try for food that is smaller than the spider's abdomen - or just prekill it. If the cricket is too big, you can also just give it a "drumstick" (cricket leg) or half of a mealworm or something similar. Most tarantulas will gladly scavenge as slings.

 

If the sling is roughly 1cm in body length, they can usually take out the average small sized cricket. Pretty much anything they can overpower they will try and eat but as mentioned, try to keep prey smaller than the spider

 

I wouldn't use fruit flies as they're are less nutritious than crickets, roaches or mealworms (which are all great feeders). Brachypelma albopilosum slings (try to use the scientific names ) are voracious eaters, mine took its first live prey (a roach nymph) when it was only 3rd instar.



IMO the easiest way to feed them at that size is to cut up mealworms. Just make sure you either cut their heads off or crush them as they can burrow quickly and might hurt your T later on (e.g. while moulting).

Also, this is a pretty good guide for beginners: http://arachnoboards.com/threads/fantastic-beginner-tarantulas-and-how-to-keep-them.314840/

 

If you're going to feed crickets from a pet store, you'll want to get them a day or two in advance and provide the cricket/s with food and water. This is called "gut loading" and it means your T is getting a more nutritous meal since crickets straight from the pet store are often hungry/thirsty. You can offer the cricket/s a slice of raw potato, carrot, or apple and a little cap of water with stones in it to prevent drowning (side note/pro tip, tarantulas don't drown so their water caps should be just water!).

 

I'd use a different enclosure entirely, to be honest. This one is too big and has way too much height. You probably got it with your spider, but those tiny terrestrial slings are better put in a small deli cup or such. @cold blood has nice example pics.

And I'd always provide a tiny water dish if possible. A few strands of sphagnum moss which can be watered very easily are also useful. Don't mist. Water from misting will evaporate really quickly and does nothing for your T. Pour a little bit of water directly onto the substrate instead.

 

Oh no!! Is this necessary?? I get my crickets from PetCo (I've had my T since Nov.) & I just feed him directly........

 

Feeding the crickets before, as far as I understand it, simply provides the tarantula with extra nutrients, it is not necessary. Don't worry! Spiders in the wild eat what they can get, not necessarily food that's been 'gut loaded'.

 

He certainly won't die if the feeders aren't gut loaded.

Right, but food in the wild has access to food whereas feeders in a box at the prt store do not.

Um, no. Absolutely not. Paper disintegrates and molds, and the spider cannot get moisture out of it anyways. They need clean, unonstructed water.

"Gut loading is the process by which an animal's prey is raised and fed nutritious foods with the intention of passing those nutrients to the animal for which the prey is intended."

"Gut loading simply means feeding the crickets nutritious foods so that the nutrition is passed on to your pet."

Maybe you are thinking about the term "dusting" which refers to adding calcium and other vitamins/supplements for reptile feeder inverts... which doesn't apply to Ts. But "gut loading" does not specifically mean to add supplements that are reptile-specific.

 

"Gut-loading" to my understanding is the practice of taking feeders around 24hrs or so prior to feeding them off and sticking them in a separate enclosure with a food source (usually fresh fruit/veg if you don't usually feed these) to ensure they have a gut full of fresh food upon being fed off.

As @cold blood already said, this practice is meant for insectivorous vertebrates that have different nutritional requirements ("gut-loading" is used in conjunction with dusting to ensure that the animal isn't missing out on any nutrients they may need), there's no need to do this for this for tarantulas.

 

Okay, well ignore me then... who knew feeding your feeders before feeding them off was such a bad thing

 

Oh, I love some leaves in the enclosures because it gives your T places to hide and the opportunity to work with them. I'm still not fond of the enclosure itself as it's still too big and has too much height.
Also, a normal bottle cap might be too big as well, not because it could drown (it won't!), but because it probably can't reach the water properly. I always use tiny things like caps of a sample tube (diameter about 1/3" - 1/2") or tiny moulding cases made out of silicone for pralines and such. These things are far easier to place them flush to the ground for easy access.

This is my B. albo in two different small enclosures. The first one was about half the size of the second one.



Now it is in its third enclosure which is a 4" DIY cube:



And now, at about 1 1/4", it actually has a bottle cap as a water dish.