My mature female L. Hesperus has been extremely prolific at laying egg sacks, she's blessed me with 4 so far and I allowed one to hatch out. I've been raising a portion of the slings as pets but this is my first time raising anything from a sling like this and I constantly find myself feeling unprepared. It's been about 20 days since they emerged from they sack and They seem to be doing quite well, growing like weeds, but I still have some questions as thus far a lot of my care has been a matter of research and educated guesses. There seems to be a pretty limited amount of info out there about hatching & raising Latrodectus slings.
My biggest question is how often should they be fed? My adult gets 1 large cricket every 2ish weeks, I gauge her readiness to eat in part on her abdomen size but the slings being so small makes that challenging. I've been offering them fruit flies every 2-4 days, is that to little? They have already been separated into individual enclosures so they aren't able to feed on each other between flies.
How long can they go without food at this age? I know adults are quite hardy but I'm not sure if that's true for juveniles too.
How big should they be before moving up to pinhead crickets? I thought the flies were to big since many of them were about half the size of a fruit fly at first but they've had no problem hunting them. I accidentally put 5 in one spiders enclosure one night and all 5 had been caught by morning. But I know crickets can bite and don't want to risk them getting hurt.
Lastly, any tips for discouraging them from hiding under the enclosure's lids? I've tried using mesh under the cap but they just hide on the mesh instead and get pulled up out of the enclosure when I pull it off, which is no better than when they hide under the lid.
Thanks for any help!
My biggest question is how often should they be fed? My adult gets 1 large cricket every 2ish weeks, I gauge her readiness to eat in part on her abdomen size but the slings being so small makes that challenging. I've been offering them fruit flies every 2-4 days, is that to little? They have already been separated into individual enclosures so they aren't able to feed on each other between flies.
How long can they go without food at this age? I know adults are quite hardy but I'm not sure if that's true for juveniles too.
How big should they be before moving up to pinhead crickets? I thought the flies were to big since many of them were about half the size of a fruit fly at first but they've had no problem hunting them. I accidentally put 5 in one spiders enclosure one night and all 5 had been caught by morning. But I know crickets can bite and don't want to risk them getting hurt.
Lastly, any tips for discouraging them from hiding under the enclosure's lids? I've tried using mesh under the cap but they just hide on the mesh instead and get pulled up out of the enclosure when I pull it off, which is no better than when they hide under the lid.
Thanks for any help!
