spiny orb weavers.

[Spider-Man v2.0]

i was inspiered by the other thread to ceatch a few of the ones i got in my yard and try breeding them. my question is how exacly do i keep them in an encloser, i was thinking fruit flies whould be a good food. or realy small pin head crickets.
what kinda humidity whould u suggest and whats thear life span??

 

[Code Monkey]

They're seasonal, so the females you've captured might make it into early winter, but will drop dead some time this winter most likely no matter what you do.

What we do with orb weavers in the lab is we have single or double cheap sterilite containers that the bottoms have been cut out of. Frames of wood doweling are hotglued around the perimeter of the boxes, and then we use "high tech" cellophane wrap to seal the open areas for inspecting the spiders.

These guys need a fairly large frame to build properly, figure 2' x 2'. As long as humidity isn't arid and you're misting every other day or so (morning dew simulation), I doubt you'll have issues with that.

 

[Spider-Man v2.0]

so just use a dellie container, with the botom covered with "hi tech sadwitch wrap" and mist every other day, what about feeding.. how offten whould i feed them.

 

[Code Monkey]

so just use a dellie container, with the botom covered with "hi tech sadwitch wrap" and mist every other day, what about feeding.. how offten whould i feed them.

You'll need a *large* deli container, note the 2' x 2' up there, aka 24" x 24". You might get by with a somewhat smaller frame, but you will need a frame of some sort for them to build their web.

As far as food goes, probably anything that you can trap in their webs. Their webs seem designed for *small* flying insects, but I'm sure a roach nymph or small cricket would be happily dispatched.