Need live food in Cyprus - desperately!

[Harry13CY]

Hi guys, I recently bought a female (hopefully) A.geniculata. I am new to the hobby, but I studied really hard before buying it. I built a great terrarium, cocofiber, hand made cave, waterdish, everything.

Here is the problem: when I bought Kali (her name), the guy that sold me her didn't bring me the crickets I asked for. I was planning to make a cricket colony for live food. Here in Cyprus there are no tarantulas in petshops, neither live food. Nobody ships live roaches/crickets from another country, and I couldn't find anyone selling roaches or crickets. So what am I going to do? I cant leave Kali starve to death!

I am currently gutloading a dozen of wild caught roaches for the last 10 days, and I am planning to use them If they don't seem to be exposed to anything, but I know this is not good. I already fed her some beef, it worked, but this is not as healthy either! Is there a way to ship live roaches to Cyprus? Does anybody know if there are places in Cyprus that sell some?

 

[fatich]

Check your inbox

 

[Mez]

Isnt cypress in the eu? www.livefoods.co.uk delivers throughout Europe.

 

[BrynWilliams]

mez you're correct

also, i'd suggest looking at any of the predominantly EU based forums in the classifieds section

RFUK has a ton of feeders +_ colonies up for sale right now. This time of year is also a good time to be looking as roaches survive shipments better when its warmer

 

[Harry13CY]

Thanks for the response

The classifieds section didn't help much, most pages are in german (translated them) and they don't ship in all countries.

Vidaro guided me to a cyprus reptile/tarantula forum, I hope they can help me. If they can't, I will use www.livefoods.co.uk.

At least she ate the entire huge piece of beef - geniculatas really eat like horses! - so she won't be hungry for a while. Thank you all for the help!

 

[paassatt]

The mesh-screen lid on the enclosure could possibly present a problem down the road in the form of a tarsal claw getting stuck if your spider decides to explore the lid. Not saying that will definitely happen, but it's a possibility. You might want to reconsider using that type of lid.

 

[BrynWilliams]

i meant the classifieds of these links below:

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/invert-classifieds/

there have been many recent ads put up selling feeder colonies, just gotta use the search in that section

 

[Merfolk]

Fish and shrimp meat is closer to what Ts normally eat. Some chicken would fare occasionnaly. Ts do eat inverts when they can, but warm blooded herbivores are a very rare threat, so they are not adapted to digest vast amounts of such meat.

 

[Harry13CY]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I think I found some german site that will ship me a starter colony of dubias, but until that happens, I'll use whatever I can find (and it's safe)

 

[tarantulagirl10]

This is more than likely a dumb thing to ask but, what about bait shops? The bait shops here have loads of crickets.

 

[Harry13CY]

There are no dumb questions. Just dumb answers. I 've already searched bait shops, the only live bait they sell here is small worms, but nothing large enough for my Tarantula - not to mention that a worm species that I don't know may cause all sorts of problems (borrowing fast, biting, infections, toxicity for tarantulas etc). But happily, I found out that Tropic-Shop.de ships to Cyprus and I ordered a starter Dubia colony. I am officially the most disgusting person among my friends now (but itis an ongoing battle!).

 

[Moltar]

Capturing and establishing a colony of whatever roaches are native to your area is a potential solution. It shouldn't take too long to get that underway. You could do the same with crickets if you have any around you.

 

[Harry13CY]

Problem solved!

I finally managed to import a dubia roach colony from Germany, from

tropic-shop.de

Shipped like a charm, only 3 adults and 15 youngs DOA

(Kali will feast today! Muahahahahahahaha!!!!)