raising spiderlings that require very small prey

motorteipidpa

Arachnosquire
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Aug 7, 2002
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if you dont have access to pinheads or fruit flies in your area,what is a good source of food for 1/4" or 1/2" spiderlings?most of my lings i make sure there an inch or more wen i buy them so they have no problem taking normal size crickets but i recently had a curly hair ling that was 1/2" that died because i had problems finding food for it.well i could find food for it,but the food killed it.i would put a chopped up cricket part in with it and it would eat it but it would leave alot left over and the leftover would mold over night pretty badly and the next day i would remove the moldy leftover.it died because one night the mold got so bad it took over the whole vial and grew on to the curly and killed it.i recently got another ling that is very small,1/4" to take the curlies place.its a carlsbad green spiderling.i dont want no moldly left over cricket parts killing it like with the curly.what are some good alternative foods it would take if the pet stores around here dont sell pinheads or fruit flies?i herd some people give cricket legs to there lings but to me,it dosent look like the crickets legs have much on them the sling can eat.
your responses are greatly appreciated.
Tom
 

schlinkey

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Jul 28, 2002
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dunno if it's any help, but I've never seen any mold on my chopped crickets... the only thing i feed mine, as pinheads are really hard to come by here. best bet would be fighting the mold.. though i don't understand how that's such a problem in you case. maybe keepin em too moist?
 

Code Monkey

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The "drumsticks" off of a decent sized cricket have quite a bit of food value. If you're getting mold overnight in a sling vial, you're keeping things too moist. dead crickets/cricket parts do mold pretty quickly, but not before hungry slings get a chance to munch all they want.

When small crickets are around, I use them, when they're not, I just dice up a larger cricket. Occasionally I'll mail order fruit flies for a treat.
 

Lost_Tarantula

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Oct 15, 2002
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What I do is take small crickets, about the same size as the tarantula, and cut off their heads. I never had a mold problem, but someone I know did. The difference was that I kept soil in my conainer, and the person I know had keptonly some soil, and a lot of the plastic was still showing. His sling is still fine, got moved to a new container. So my advice is feed it whole dead crickets, keep a high level of soil, and don't keep it too moist in there. Also don't forget to remove the dead cricket if your T doesn't accept it. Probably max of a day, but that's just a guess.


EDIT: Code Monkey beats me to it. Posted while I was taking my sweet time typing. :}
 

motorteipidpa

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Aug 7, 2002
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lol im dumb.and i rarely eat chicken.when you said "drumsticks" your talking about the legs right?lol
Tom
 

Code Monkey

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Originally posted by motorteipidpa
lol im dumb.and i rarely eat chicken.when you said "drumsticks" your talking about the legs right?lol
Tom
The rear pair of legs on a cricket is very much like a drumstick on a chicken. The large "hopping" muscles in the first segment are yummy and nutritious for growing slings. That you can feed two slings and a larger T with one cricket is quite a deal.
 

Frogdaddy

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Nov 13, 2019
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Nothing like resurrecting an 18 yr old thread. Always good to look back and see how things have changed.
Anyway.....has anyone ever fed termites to very small slings?
I've fed them to dart frogs as a treat. I believe they have a rather high fat content. On the plus side you can collect them yourself from a safe pesticide free area.
 

HOVisSober

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Jun 25, 2020
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I just cut superworms up and they seem to gobble them up. Takes an hour or so for them to eat though, probably making sure it's already dead.
 

Ah Lee

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May 30, 2020
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I still go drumsticks. Drumsticks for the kids, the rest for the old folks :p
 

Jesse607

Arachnodemon
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Dec 29, 2002
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Nothing like resurrecting an 18 yr old thread. Always good to look back and see how things have changed.
Anyway.....has anyone ever fed termites to very small slings?
I've fed them to dart frogs as a treat. I believe they have a rather high fat content. On the plus side you can collect them yourself from a safe pesticide free area.
Yes, I have used termites. I used to have my own captive termite colonies as well as access to research colonies in the lab I worked in. I don't recall any issues with feeding them to tarantulas, however feeding them to small/baby mantids was an issue. As one would imagine, as they are able to chew into dense wood, the workers have powerful little jaws and were able to clip segments of the mantids raptorial legs off if not held properly by the mantid.
 
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