# overfeeding slings



## dazzer2 (Mar 31, 2010)

hi was wondering what the main dangers of overfeeding slings and adult T's.....i have been feeding my L.para slings a maggot every 2 days and out of 10 ..7or 8 have been taking straight away they are plump but worried if im harming them also my L.para's 3 inch and 8-9 inch eat adult cockroaches as fed ..
all comments appreciated 
cheers dazzer:notworthy:


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## DRAGONLOVER1981 (Jul 7, 2009)

Ive heard there is a risk of the abdomen bursting from being over fed. Im sure some one else would know if thats the only risk or not.


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## scotgirl7870 (Apr 28, 2011)

I've heard that overfeeding slings substantially shortens their life. I still feed them as much as they can take until they're about a half inch just to get them big enough to not be so fragile.


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## dazzer2 (Mar 31, 2010)

DRAGONLOVER1981 said:


> Ive heard there is a risk of the abdomen bursting from being over fed. Im sure some one else would know if thats the only risk or not.


read that aswell caused from small falls but theres no height or sharps in my sling potts ????
cheers for reply dazzer:2thumb:


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## dazzer2 (Mar 31, 2010)

scotgirl7870 said:


> I've heard that overfeeding slings substantially shortens their life. I still feed them as much as they can take until they're about a half inch just to get them big enough to not be so fragile.


how much and often do you feed your slings?????
cheers dazzer:2thumb:


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## scotgirl7870 (Apr 28, 2011)

I feed mine crickets 2-3 times a week and make sure all previous crickets have been eaten before I put more in.


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## scotgirl7870 (Apr 28, 2011)

And usually give them about 3 to 4 at a time too


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## vivalabam (Aug 8, 2010)

They don't need that much food, once a week is fine, and mine still grow pretty quick.


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## dazzer2 (Mar 31, 2010)

vivalabam said:


> They don't need that much food, once a week is fine, and mine still grow pretty quick.


hi my slings eat the maggots as many as i feed just started a roach colony so will be feeding them dubai's babies soon bigger food less frequent 
dazzer:2thumb:


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

scotgirl7870 said:


> *I've heard that overfeeding slings substantially shortens their life.* I still feed them as much as they can take until they're about a half inch just to get them big enough to not be so fragile.


I've heard this too, but I've never heard any evidence for it...

It'll speed up their growth, but if you slow feeding down once adult then I see no reason why their lives would be any shorter.

I feed my slings when I have food for them. As a result when I'm being lazy my slings may eat about once a month or two, but when they do they're fed whenever they'll take food for a week or two.

I pretty much just feed spiders when they look like they need feeding, based on abdomen size, slings I like to see nice and fat.

Also, stupid though spiders may be, I'd be surprised if any (aside from a genic or GBB) would eat so much that they'd pop. However if overfull they may be at a higher risk of rupturing their abdomen, but a properly set up tub should leave very few options for managing that.


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## Dr3d (Jul 31, 2010)

dazzer2 said:


> how much and often do you feed your slings?????
> cheers dazzer:2thumb:


 
once a week or if they look fat I dont feed them till they loose weight!!!! over feeeding is not good for any animal...


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## dazzer2 (Mar 31, 2010)

Dr3d said:


> once a week or if they look fat I dont feed them till they loose weight!!!! over feeeding is not good for any animal...


hi without bein disrespectful im after solid evidence of risks ..all my L.para's are plump an never had problems except 1 bad molt resulting in limb loss ....thats 1 of my worry's (bad molts)
CHEERS DAZZER :2thumb:


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## Dr3d (Jul 31, 2010)

dazzer2 said:


> hi without bein disrespectful im after solid evidence of risks ..all my L.para's are plump an never had problems except 1 bad molt resulting in limb loss ....thats 1 of my worry's (bad molts)
> CHEERS DAZZER :2thumb:


 
Ok solid evidence of risks that I have googled would be...

1. Abdomen becoming damaged by dragging across substrate or any other planting you have in the enclosure, causing cuts and infection or even rupture of the abdomen.
2. Power feeding will make your tarantula grow faster and may reduce its life expectancy.
3. Will make the abdomen swell to much and even the smallest fall may rupture the abdomen!!

Rule of thumb dont let the abdomen get over double the size of the carapace...


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## dazzer2 (Mar 31, 2010)

Dr3d said:


> Ok solid evidence of risks that I have googled would be...
> 
> 1. Abdomen becoming damaged by dragging across substrate or any other planting you have in the enclosure, causing cuts and infection or even rupture of the abdomen.
> 2. Power feeding will make your tarantula grow faster and may reduce its life expectancy.
> ...


cheers pal thanks for your help mate will limit my feeding cos these slings eat like horses 
cheers again dazzer:notworthy:


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## Dr3d (Jul 31, 2010)

dazzer2 said:


> cheers pal thanks for your help mate will limit my feeding cos these slings eat like horses
> cheers again dazzer:notworthy:


 
It's Google remember lol however I judge most of my feeding by size of abdomen, I dont feed my collection on a set day or set timetable.... In the wild they may have nothing for a month and all of a sudden 10 food items may come by in 2 days lol all my spiders get water but different amounts for different species and not all in water bowls some i make a small pool in the webbing, if they cant hydrate they will die fast if they dont eat for a month there fine


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

Remember of course that spiders will usually stop eating once they're full.

And maggots are mostly water, much of which _may _be excreted.


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## Poxicator (Nov 14, 2007)

You won't find solid, undisputed evidence of many issues to do with tarantula, and you're not likely to, its a hobby issue, that the owners themselves should use common sense with. Quite frankly I find it astounding that everyone requires evidence or written reports before they'll change their husbandry. This applies to many of the issues we have in the hobby and it seems more directed by their own desires rather than sense.

As Dred has suggested, there are issues noted by hobbyists. 

Overfeeding speeds up the metabolism, therefore increasing the rate of moults which perhaps they are not ready for, you'll note many tarantula are reported to have issues when moulting.
Ray Gabriel noted shorter lifespan and less fertility in powerfed tarantula.
More importantly a group "of notables" brought together to discuss issues within the hobby stated that overfeeding was the biggest threat to our hobby.

If you ask anyone that has been on field trips they'll usually repeat the same thing, you never find an overfed tarantula in the wild.


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## Dr3d (Jul 31, 2010)

Hedgewitch said:


> Remember of course that spiders will usually stop eating once they're full.
> 
> And maggots are mostly water, much of which _may _be excreted.


I agree they are full of juice  they are also full of fatty protien


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## dazzer2 (Mar 31, 2010)

Poxicator said:


> You won't find solid, undisputed evidence of many issues to do with tarantula, and you're not likely to, its a hobby issue, that the owners themselves should use common sense with. Quite frankly I find it astounding that everyone requires evidence or written reports before they'll change their husbandry. This applies to many of the issues we have in the hobby and it seems more directed by their own desires rather than sense.
> 
> As Dred has suggested, there are issues noted by hobbyists.
> 
> ...


 point taken thanks


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## dazzer2 (Mar 31, 2010)

Dr3d said:


> I agree they are full of juice  they are also full of fatty protien


hi do you think baby dubai's would be better ? i thought roaches were full of protein( shell to thingy ratio)like maggots
im deffo gonna limit feeding after all comments 
be postin in few months my T's are skinny ha ha 
cheers dazzer:2thumb:


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## Dr3d (Jul 31, 2010)

dazzer2 said:


> hi do you think baby dubai's would be better ? i thought roaches were full of protein( shell to thingy ratio)like maggots
> im deffo gonna limit feeding after all comments
> be postin in few months my T's are skinny ha ha
> cheers dazzer:2thumb:


 
All my slings start on weevils thanks to Poxicator  
from then on in its a mixture of wax worms, crickets, dubia, maderra roach morio worms.... I never feed black crickets or hoppers/locust...

I would have no issue feeding maggots to my T's but I only feed natural coloured maggots not dyed.. not saying that coloured ones will effect my T's just airing on the cousious side..


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

Poxicator said:


> You won't find solid, undisputed evidence of many issues to do with tarantula, and you're not likely to, its a hobby issue, that the owners themselves should use common sense with.


A fair point, we can't expect proper research on much to do with tarantulas. Much of what we know is hobby knowledge.



> *Quite frankly I find it astounding that everyone requires evidence or written reports before they'll change their husbandry.* This applies to many of the issues we have in the hobby and it seems more directed by their own desires rather than sense.


Really Pete? You find it surprising that people who's methods of keeping seem to be working would like something as petty as evidence before they change the way they do things?

Of course there is always an element of laziness and stubbornness in not wanting to change your husbandry, but at the same time, I see so much balderdash passed around the hobby as gospel that I generally don't change stuff unless I've observed things myself or someone has something better than the equivalent of "some bloke down the pub told me".



> As Dred has suggested, there are issues noted by hobbyists.
> 
> Overfeeding speeds up the metabolism, therefore increasing the rate of moults which perhaps they are not ready for, you'll note many tarantula are reported to have issues when moulting.


Moulting is a problem and danger to pretty much all arthropods. A spider in ill health will much more likely die during a moult than just in day to day inactivity.

And I ask: How on earth would they "not be ready for a moult"? I'm not saying there's no truth to it, but when I come across ideas like this my first thought is "by what mechanism would this make sense". 

If you're feeding more, and that is speeding up the moult cycle, what exactly wont be ready? Available nutrients? No. Available energy? No. Available water? No moult cycle is fast enough if your spider has access to water (and there's water in prey). 

I'd need someone who knows more about arthropod physiology and and hormonal cycles to explain, but currently I can't see much possibility in that answer. Course, I'm not an arthropod biologist.



> Ray Gabriel noted shorter lifespan and less fertility in powerfed tarantula.


Interesting, I've heard that idea thrown around before, though never attributed to Ray Gabriel (and I see no reason to doubt that it was him).

I suppose that could make sense, say prey choice, female spider fertility is often correlated with available lipids in the diet, powerfed spiders could maybe be deficient in some nutrient or other while being mature enough to breed.

Though I'd like to see some statistical analysis of this, problem being humans are great at seeing patterns, alas we also see them where no pattern is. One of the reasons I like to see something like evidence for claims like this. Once we've decided there's a pattern we'll see it more and more. Ray's kept and bred a great many tarantulas though, so I expect the records are there if you could identify the powerfed ones.

Say powerfed spiders have less fertility, every time you get a small sac from a powerfed spider that's confirmation, every time you get a normal sac, c'est la vie, every time you get a large sac, it's in spite of the powerfeeding.

A slow grown spider, small sac, well it happens, a regular sac, c'est la vie, a large sac, well of course, it was slow grown and healthy...

It's very easy to attribute causal relationships to things like this, without taking other factors into account. E.g. varied diets, varied husbandry between power feeders and those against, errors in perception etc.



> More importantly a group "of notables" brought together to discuss issues within the hobby stated that overfeeding was the biggest threat to our hobby.


OK, and I'll take their word for that. I don't know how it's a "threat to the hobby" but ok.

Though a minor point: you noted before that


> This applies to many of the issues we have in the hobby and it seems more directed by their own desires rather than sense.


Notables tend to have been in the hobby longer than others, and are very knowledgeable. But with this time in the hobby many may cling to their own ways out of desire rather than sense, proclaiming newer/other ways of keeping spiders to be foolish, wrong or detrimental. I'm not saying they are, just that it's always a thought to keep in mind.



> If you ask anyone that has been on field trips they'll usually repeat the same thing, you never find an overfed tarantula in the wild.


I've seen pics of Avics in the wild eating lizards the same size as themselves... Doubt they'll be looking skinny after that. Tarantulas are boom-bust feeders, as you would expect from reclusive ambush hunters, and will gorge when the opportunity arrives.

Avics I've seen in the wild tended to be about the same level of "fullness" of most of the ones I see in hobby pictures. Some with smaller abdomens, some with bigger abdomen.

Also: Sierra Madre del sur
Wild tarantula, second last pic from the bottom.

French Guiana and Amapa (Brazil)

Several looking as porky as any hobby specimen.

---

I am not advocating overfeeding. I err on the 1 side of the 1-2 times the size of the prosoma rule personally, and think spiders look silly all puffed up.

I'm just explaining my view on the whole "I want to see some proof" comments.

And sorry for the wall of text and quotes.


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## Poxicator (Nov 14, 2007)

good replies Toby.

Here's comment from 
 *Christian Elowsky* 
ATS Vice President 

I have no doubts that overfeeding/power feeding kills more tarantulas than anything else. It comes down to growth rates and how fast the "machinery" of molting can keep up. The process involves breaking down the old exoskeleton, making the new, and getting it all done on a time table. All of that molecular work takes enzymes, metals, and more than just sheer fat and calories. When people feed lizards and mammals, except possibly to prep for a huge breeding attempt in the females, they end up pushing the works too hard. I've been seeing many animals, mostly _Theraphosa_ spp., which are getting "ulcers" which I suspect are from weak exoskeletons. Besides the ethical discussions, which are much stronger across the puddle on the BTS side than here, there is no reason to feed a tarantula the caloric equivalent of an entire bucket of lard. 

Do any job twice as fast, and you'll see more mistakes. If people choose to push the machinery in these animals, you will see the same, and that's reason enough to do it. Sadly, in the US, the average hobbyist lasts around 3 years, and they want "results". Idiots, the lot. By the way, 90% of the time, those ulcers are lethal.

....At Arachnocon in 2007, a well rounded round table discussion all agreed that overfeeding was the main issue facing the hobby, the group included Eric Reynolds, Bill Korinek, Michael Jacobi and I think Frank Somma. Since then, I have been making my own observations, and I've seen enough to support that overfeeding (of any prey items) or commonly feeding rodents causes molting issues.


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

Poxicator said:


> good replies Toby.
> 
> Here's comment from
> *Christian Elowsky*
> ...


Thanks Pete.

If there's one thing better than being right, it's finding out you're wrong and that the actual truth is more interesting.


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