Power-Feeding

ChineseDragon

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 27, 2007
Messages
22
Hey guys,

I just recently acquired a 3 inch S. subspinipes Tiger legs pede and was wondering if you could "power-feed" it to speed up its growth rate. I was hoping I could achieve this by increasing the humidity and temperature which seems to increase its motabolism and therefore maybe the groth rate. I have been able to feed it at least one 1 inch cricket a day(or is this normal?) and it seems very happy and active. My setup is a classic 10 gallon glass tank with a bottom layer of desert sand and a 2nd layer of coco fibre ontop of the sand. Heating comes from one 30 watt under-heater as well as from lights in the tank cover(used to be a fish tank). With the lights on aka during the day the temperature is about 27+ degrees celsius and at night it drops to about 24 degrees. I spray the tank every other day and provide a small drinking cup. Also, my pede hasn't tried to burrow yet and I have not provided a hiding spot either as I am trying to see if it'll do fine being out in the open at all times(display animal).

Please give me your guys' experienced input on this as I don't want to risk my lil' Chinese Dragon's life.

Thanks in advance,


~mark
 

JonathanF

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 18, 2006
Messages
116
I have to admit I didn't read your entire post, but I thought it might be useful for you to know that if your pedes eats more, his life span will be smaller.
 

abott

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 4, 2007
Messages
10
Stop "powerfeeding" you probably payed alot of money for that centipede so it wouldnt be good if it dies. one cricket a week is plenty and as it gets bigger switch to roaches. good luck with your pede
 

ragnew

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
525
A single cricket a week? Man, if I did that with any of my subspinipes I'd feel like I was starving them. I would definitely do more then 1 cricket a week. Even my younger Cherry Leg (2 inches or so) and SHC (3-4 now) easily take down 3-5 crickets in a weeks time. And that's without additional heating. I don't really classify that as "powerfeeding".

Just my two pennies.
 

mindlessvw

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 6, 2006
Messages
528
I feed three to five crickets to my big guys a week...by big i would say over 7 inches...other than that maybe a couple of crix a week...2-3
 

cacoseraph

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 5, 2005
Messages
8,325
you need to be EXTREMELY careful not to dehydrate and damage or kill your centipedes if you are going to be heating them. if it really does stay at or under 27*C then you should probably be fine... but if you try to heat them up too much past 30*C you are starting to get into risky territory


as for power feeding.... one thing that is much more of a risk with cents than taras or scorps is that when you introduce a lot of food there is going to be a lot of food scraps left over... centipedes are the messiest eaters of C/S/T and leave pieces everywhere.... which will pretty much guarantee a mite bloom for you

i am actually sort of contemplating startign to move some of my centipedes to other cages to feed them, in an attempt to keep their normal living cages more clean
 

beetleman

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 5, 2005
Messages
2,874
my med pedes 1crix weekly,my large pedes 2crix weekly my giants 4crix weekly,works for them/me:)
 

cacoseraph

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 5, 2005
Messages
8,325
my med pedes 1crix weekly,my large pedes 2crix weekly my giants 4crix weekly,works for them/me:)
that sounds like what i do... maybe you feed a little bit higher in quantity and frequency though


basically for all my bugs i have a variable frequency feeding schedule with quantity adjusted to individuals (skinny bugs get bigger amounts when i feed them... really fat bugs just get water (and sometimes those rice wafers (joking)))

for centipedes if i can't really see their pleural membrane (the skin by the legs, between the armor plates0 then i feed a lot.... if i they are just about as "tall" as they are wide (snakes with legs) then i put them on a calorically restricted diet
 
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