what happens if you overfeed Tarantulas?

[RadicalRay07]

Just curious, what might happen if you overfeed a tarantula?

 

[DomGom TheFather]

They get fat and stop eating.
Aside from preceding a long fast, overfeeding may increase risk of injury from falls or just from dragging a fat ass around.

 

[NMTs]

Just curious, what might happen if you overfeed a tarantula?

This:

https://arachnoboards.com/threads/huge-tarantula-abdomen.354359/

 

[Wolfram1]

Tarantulas are ambush predators, that often have to go long periods of time without food. This means they may accept more food in captivity than would usually be healthy for them to consume. The result is a fat/obese tarantula that is much more likely to injure themselves than spiders that have not saved up as much energy.

The opisthosoma enlarges and thus the flexible part of the exoskeleton gets thinner. Think of a Water balloon. The more Water you fill in the more likely it will pop on impact. A ballon half filled may even bounce of and not rupture at all. The same goes for the spiders opisthosoma. If a Spider is fed in moderate amounts it may climb and fall without injuring itself. On the other hand an obese Spider will rupture its abdomen and die from the exact same fall.

There are other dangers. An enlarged Opisthosoma is heavy and spiders may fail to lift it properly if they are too fat. This can cause them to scrape it over the substrate and depending on its abrasive properties can in turn lead to some rubbed off setae (used to aid the spider with its water repelling properties) or in the worst case injuries that can lead to molting complications and finally death.
Pictures say more than a 1000 Words:

Maybe one too many crickets for this little one

So I more or less just wanted to take this opportunity to post pictures of my rather plump T. vagans, but I might as well ask, does this look like premolt to you? I apologize for the poor camera quality

arachnoboards.com

Reduced lifespan and reduced maximum size are also occasionally mentioned in relation to overfeeding spiders but as far as i can tell those are observations that may or may not be true.

 

[Poonjab]

They blow up. just like over heating spaghettios in the microwave.

 

[Frogdaddy]

You will be subjected to an extended time period watching Rob Lowe do infomercials for the Atkins diet.

 

[viper69]

They stop eating- funny how that works

 

[kingshockey]

not always i made the mistake of overfeeding few of my ts. my hamorii has been on a diet of a super worm monthly over a year now and its still on the chubby side

 

[spideyspinneret78]

Typically it does, but the problem that many people run into is that tarantulas need to be fed less frequently as they grow out of the juvenile stage. If you keep feeding your subadult-adult spider the same number of times as you did when it was small, it will be putting much less of that energy into growth and will quickly become obese. Some of my adults get fed once every few weeks and still are on the fat side.

 

[The Grym Reaper]

They refuse to eat for extended periods, they become more susceptible to injuries from falls, and they can develop drag injuries (which can in turn lead to abdominal ruptures, see below for an example of an L. parahybana that ruptured its abdomen trying to moult with a drag injury, images used with permission of the owner)

 

[Smotzer]

I think the data is quite sufficient, most people don’t ever see the way tarantulas live in the wild, they are much thinner and pretty much all given times than their captive counterparts and that’s the way they evolved. The regular feeding in captivity hijacks they sit and wait predatory evolutionary adaption that says “when food comes around, it may not come around again for a bit, so youve gotta eat” this leads to people thinking tarantulas are “hungry” and that their food intake must be regular or that thin is somehow bad.

This is the size of the abdomen of an adult female Aphonopelma hertzthat was underground all winter notice how the abdomen is just about the size of the carapace?
Or this juvenile who was underground all winter with an abdomen equal to smaller than it’s carapace?
both are quite healthy and survive without being obese.

 

[viper69]

not always i made the mistake of overfeeding few of my ts. my hamorii has been on a diet of a super worm monthly over a year now and its still on the chubby side

Look at you giving them a fat rich diet, living like royalty!
My AF albo broke her eating record- was 18mnths, now over 2 yrs. Just molted a few days ago