Unpopular pinkies.

[luther]

My wife was away for the weekend, so I took the opportunity to offer pinkies to my B.smithi, B.vagans and G.rosea. My wife is a vegetarian and a bit squeamish, so she would throw a hissy fit at feeding poor little dead baby mice to a T.

Anyway, it was a complete failure. All three Ts ignored Frankenstein's warm jelly babies for the whole 24 hours I left them in the tanks. None showed the slightest interest in eating something that was already dead. The two Brachys both accepted two crickets each instead, once I'd removed the pinkies. The G.rosea is starting to look like it will never eat again (8 months since last meal).

Did I get something wrong? Should I have made the pinkies move by dragging them round on a piece of cotton? Does anyone else use the "puppetry of death", or do your Ts go for static carrrion?

 

[jwb121377]

Sometimes if you warm the pinkies up the tarantulas will take a little more intrest in them. I often feed live pinkies and I still find there are some tarantulas that have no intrest in them.

 

[RugbyDave]

hey there

try the live feeding, too..... If some of mine won't take them right away, i'll leave them right in front of the burrow for the night.

Usually, if they don't want them, i'll find them the next morning in the waterdish. But that's a rare thing, and usually all i find is a little bolus.

then again yours may not dig pinkies.. try some anoles or roaches.

good luck
peace
dave

 

[Godzilla2000]

I wouldn't feed my Tarantulas any pinkies because they look too much like a certain body part to me. If I want to give my spiders a little variety, I'd just order up some roaches, mealworms or superworms.

 

[chuck]

ive only fed a pinkie or fuzzie to my L.parahybana and she would never take it unless i either droped it right on her or right next to her.

 

[jwb121377]

I think it is illegal to feed a living thing to another in the UK.

 

[Godzilla2000]

Originally posted by jwb121377
I think it is illegal to feed a living thing to another in the UK.

Not even crickets?

 

[jwb121377]

Sorry, I should say it is illegal to feed live vertebrae.

 

[vulpina]

I have tried pinkies with my rosea and it also refuses to eat them. My L. parahybana, T. blondi, and P. regalis eat them with gusto.

Andy

 

[luther]

Yeah, it's illegal to feed live vertebrates here.

I have trouble feeding my T's superworms too. The little buggers always burrow under the substrate before the T wakes up. They annoy the Ts once they're under the substrate, although I did see my G.rosea dig one up last year. I've tried squishing the superworm's head before dropping it into the tank, but they die fast and the T ignores them if they don't move.

I guess I'll have to stick with crickets until I get an arboreal or a more aggressive terrestrial.

BTW, my G.rosea has started gigging a burrow! Imagine that! Activity in a G.rosea tank. Whatever next?

Finally. here's a conversation I overheard between my wife and kids:
WIFE: "We don't want any more spiders do we?"
DAUGHTER (7): "We want a million"
SON (4) "No, we want a billion".

I think I'm winning the hearts and minds of the local population.

 

[Godzilla2000]

Originally posted by luther
Yeah, it's illegal to feed live vertebrates here.

I have trouble feeding my T's superworms too. The little buggers always burrow under the substrate before the T wakes up. They annoy the Ts once they're under the substrate, although I did see my G.rosea dig one up last year. I've tried squishing the superworm's head before dropping it into the tank, but they die fast and the T ignores them if they don't move.

I guess I'll have to stick with crickets until I get an arboreal or a more aggressive terrestrial.

BTW, my G.rosea has started gigging a burrow! Imagine that! Activity in a G.rosea tank. Whatever next?

Finally. here's a conversation I overheard between my wife and kids:
WIFE: "We don't want any more spiders do we?"
DAUGHTER (7): "We want a million"
SON (4) "No, we want a billion".

I think I'm winning the hearts and minds of the local population.

Here's a friendly suggestion concerning mealworms and superworms: put them onto a washed cottage cheese lid that has a pretty high lip on it that your T can crawl over. It really, really works.

 

[Poecilotheria]

I once tried feeding a pinky to a 6in. Heteroscodra maculata, it bit it and killed it. Also had a Theraphosa blondi, 9in. Threw the biggest mouse in there with it i've ever seen. A little bigger than 3in. body length. She eventually got a handle on it and it took her 3 days to finish eating, lol. She ate almost all of it, and she left the mouse with his "jewels", she ate almost everything but, lol.
Steve