Too much food?

[H3rmitHasTrantulas]

Hey their, so today my tarantula came out for the first time in forever. So seeing that he came out I decided to feed him some flightless fruit flies. Keep in mind I'm still trying to find crickets for his size. Well I accidentally put in a few to many flies I think I put in about 8. Anyway, I was wondering if I should wait until he goes in his borrow and take as many as I can out or if I should just leave them in their for him to kill. What is your opinion?

 

[Red Eunice]

Apparently quite small since you're using FFF as feeders. Slings will scavenge, cut up mealworm will suffice until you acquire pinhead crickets.
Too many feeders may/may not stress your T. Personally, I'd remove some.

 

[nicodimus22]

FFF have barely any nutritional value, and they're a pain in the ass to deal with IMO. It's much better to pre-kill a small cricket and leave it in there. Slings happily scavenge on small pre-killed crickets (or cut up cricket parts, or cut up mealworm parts.)

I put them in around sunset, and usually within an hour or two, the ones that are hungry have either yanked the cricket into their hide/burrow to eat or they're just sitting on top of it out in the open.

 

[Devin B]

Any crickets, mealworms, or roaches you can get your hands on will work fine. When my B. Hamorii was a second instar I had to feed it an adult cricket because thats all I had. It will it was it can and you just have to remove the leftovers the next day

 

[aphono]

I also have a very hard time finding tiny prey aside fruit flies(refuse to get these).. pinhead crickets simply are not available- the local reptile store won't even order them to come along their weekly feeder orders. So far none of mine take prekilled, even though it is a common and successful practice for many. I don't know why.. but do try it with yours. If it will, you are really lucky and just continue doing that and drop the fruit flies.

One thing I did was ask to please try scooping up the smallest of the small crickets at the reptile store then pick out the smallest ones for the slings. Some are pretty close to pinhead size but most average to slightly smaller or same size as the sling, though. The slings will take them down if hungry enough. Due to the size, I put only one in at a time and usually take the cricket out if they sling does not attack it immediately or within the hour(they are in deli cups, so they encounter each other pretty quick), not leaving them overnight. Try again the next day or two. If it continues to refuse, wait a week.. if it refuses again, it probably is in premolt, just wait another week but if you see the skin looking shinier and/or darker than usual, don't try feeding again because that is premolt.

If you haven't, try looking for B. lateralis roaches- aka red runners or Turkistan/Turkestan roaches. They produce tiny babies. A bonus, they do not die so fast or seriously stink like crickets do. I managed to find someone who will ship pinhead size, the slings absolutely love them even the shy eaters. Some owners will keep a colony of these as source of pinhead size prey, but they also feed the juveniles and adults to larger tarantulas-

 

[H3rmitHasTrantulas]

Holy crap, thanks for all the help everyone! Btw, my spiderling caught every one of the flightless fruit flies.