# Are Meal worms any good for spiderlings.



## Predator (Oct 16, 2008)

Hi, just wondered if anyone uses meal worms or wax worms to feed spiderlings, i have a Chilli Rose that will eat anything and everything, but my Chaco golden Knee and Versicolour are a little more fussy, they will take small locusts. Just wanted to know if a change in food source to worms would harm them. Many thanks in advance


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## gjd1989 (Oct 9, 2008)

hey a change in food wont harm them no, but you have to be slightly more careful with mealworms. they have small jaws and its not unusal for a mealworm to kill a spiderling when its trying to moult so if feeding mealworms you should make sure you remove if not eaten the day after.

i find waxworms pretty safe. they are a big meal for a spiderling but all mine love them.


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## Predator (Oct 16, 2008)

Thankyou, this is what was worrying me the meal worms and there jaws.The chilli Rose will grab whatever pretty much as soon as its in his Tub, but the other two tend to faff about a bit when it comes to it, i wondered if it was because they were struggling to find there food, but ive been assured the housing is of correct size, and there temps are fine.Thanks again


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## Higgt4 (Apr 25, 2009)

I feed my very slings with mealworms, I just crush the head so it can't do any damage, but they still move a bit.


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## perthchickie (Mar 15, 2008)

Thats exactly what I do, crush the head and chuck them in, I had a chile rose rcf sling jump on a mealworm couple of weeks ago and it was hanging on while the meal worm wriggled all over the place:lol2: it must have been hungry



Higgt4 said:


> I feed my very slings with mealworms, I just crush the head so it can't do any damage, but they still move a bit.


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## mcluskyisms (Jan 24, 2010)

Well.....

I've been here before and yes the crickets will go down well as a staple diet but sometimes you want to give some variation on your slings diets, and to be fair, meal worms are a little too big for most slings Ive found and sometimes slings can get killed even by crickets....!

Well my first E. Sp. "Red" did, she got killed off fu***ng Micro crickets!!!

So I started doing lots of reading on the interweb and it turns out that Squats (baby maggots of the bluebottle fly) are a really good source of nutrients for slings, mind you they are fairly hard to come by, you'd have to get them from a fishing bait supplier, and if you do source some when you get them you need to keep them chilled so they live, and jeeees they really do stink!!!

Its just an idea, Its good to keep your T's on a balanced diet as apparently the best captive T's are brought up on a varied diet, but it can in fact be a bit of a nightmare!!!


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## RAZZ-MCFC (Jan 25, 2010)

i find for slings the best food is either fruit flys or bean weevils

fruit flys are better for the arboreal species as they can jump and catch them or the fruit flys will just get stuck in the web 
whereas bean weevils are better for the ground dwelling species as they can't fly

neither are big enough to hurt a sling


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## mcluskyisms (Jan 24, 2010)

RAZZ-MCFC said:


> i find for slings the best food is either fruit flys or bean weevils
> 
> fruit flys are better for the arboreal species as they can jump and catch them or the fruit flys will just get stuck in the web
> whereas bean weevils are better for the ground dwelling species as they can't fly
> ...



Well thanks mate, you've taught me a lesson I needed to learn! from now on that's the food I shall use for the first instars 

:notworthy:


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## Predator (Oct 16, 2008)

Thanks for all the info so far guys.


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## arachniface (Dec 28, 2009)

RAZZ-MCFC said:


> i find for slings the best food is either fruit flys or bean weevils
> 
> fruit flys are better for the arboreal species as they can jump and catch them or the fruit flys will just get stuck in the web


Please remember that fruit flies are not a complete diet and will rapidly cause spiderling moulting problems if they are fed exclusively. I think this is probably due to inadequate thickness of exoskeleton.

I feed my new 2cm _A. versicolor_ sling mini mealworms. They haven't caused any problems as yet (I remove the uneatens quickly): When I asked on this board if they were suitable it seemed other people thought so.


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## perthchickie (Mar 15, 2008)

Well after reading this thread:

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/spiders-inverts/407617-crickets-moulting-spiders-very-bad.html

I now pre-kill everything for my slings/small juvies


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