summer food

[versiphil]

i think also there is no need to take outside bugs for my T`s, although i did sometimes in the past.
For avics you can take worms, you have normaly for fishing (growing up to green flies). They have much proteine, are cheap and your avics will grow very fast.

If you want a real cheap alternative, try simply meat! That`s no joke. Try to feed little piece of your steak or so...(espc. for Lasiodora and Theraphosa)
They`ll like it...

 

[Merfolk]

I did it, but it seems to make my T' look bloated, like when they eat mice. On the other hand, fish and bits of frog legs are easily digested and my animals are slim and ready to eat again three days afterward while they still look stuffed two weeks after any warm blooded meat meal. But it is certainly a good idea if you go on a trip since you can stay long without feeding. A small piece of chicken would be very good for large arboreals since they actualy catch birds from times to times! And for my terrestrial, it worked better than beef.

Good idea also to pick up your flying insect at larval stage. When I think about it it makes sense. Eggs or very young larvas would have none of the pesticides that their parents are filled with, same like my frogs.

We still debate this because it is a serious issue in many places. I remember, during my first weeks as AB member, a guy posted a picture of a bunch of dead pokies in death curl. They all died overnight after eating moths that were caught outside.... he figured out afterward that he lived nearby an industrial farming operation, with their crops litteraly flavoured with pesticides.

 

[Brian S]

I am fortunate that I live in a rural area that I am sure there are no chemicals. Therefore I really look forward to feeding my larger spiders the large grasshoppers I find. 1 grasshopper=4 or 5 crickets.

 

[cacoseraph]

there are pesticides that mess with hormones to screw up the molting or *reproductive* cycles. such damage might take a long time to manifest

merfolks 2 summers time frame might show molting damagers, but not reproductive damagers


plus, all you "prove" is that the bugs your spiders already ate are putatively pesticide and parasite free... you have done nothing but demonstrate the possibility that the next feeder you catch *could be* pesticide free. you can't exactly prove somethign witht hat kind of a like, negative proof. absence of evidence of pesticides/bad things does not equate to evidence of absence... if you see what i mean?





however, catching your own feeder species... then BREEDING THE FEEDERS for like 2-3 generations should be pretty safe. i mean chrome, that is how ALL the feeder species got started. and who knows, you could make a small kingdom's ransom if you find the next "cricket". i know i'm looking for it =P

 

[Talkenlate04]

Hey that’s an interesting take on it, in tiny amounts like that maybe it’s like giving them a shot. Then they become immune somewhat to the things the chemical was meant to kill.
I wonder how true it is that maybe prey with chemicals might not be infested with smaller parasites.
Still maybe it's a good idea to avoid it, but in the grand scheme of things you are right everything has it for the most part. It's really hard for a living thing to not have something in it that's not normal, even in the artic they are finding things that are loaded with to much of one thing or another seemingly brought by rains then absorbed by plants and eaten by bugs and so on.

 

[Feathers]

A good rule of thumb for anything -

When in doubt... Don't.

 

[Merfolk]

Hey that’s an interesting take on it, in tiny amounts like that maybe it’s like giving them a shot. Then they become immune somewhat to the things the chemical was meant to kill.
I wonder how true it is that maybe prey with chemicals might not be infested with smaller parasites.
Still maybe it's a good idea to avoid it, but in the grand scheme of things you are right everything has it for the most part. It's really hard for a living thing to not have something in it that's not normal, even in the artic they are finding things that are loaded with to much of one thing or another seemingly brought by rains then absorbed by plants and eaten by bugs and so on.

I think that common insect resistance to pesticides comes gemeration after generation, the way they are made, I doubt a single individual might adapt in one lifetime.

 

[Talkenlate04]

I understand that they don’t become resistant overnight, but for me even if we can somehow say that the chemicals are not a big deal, there are still plenty of unidentified things that are carried by insects that could harm your T as well.