can T's kill their prey and eat it later???

khyile

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
11
Hi i have a OBT who i've always fed small/med size crickets until today. I've been gone for about a month and just got back and knew my baby was hungry lol so i decided hey what better way to suprise her than with a large cricket. I dropped it in there and was afraid it was to big......yea noooo nooo she molested it in 1 grab. But she killed it nibbled on it a little bit then dropped it and started kinda webbing it and walked away do they just leave it there or will they return and eat it

---------- Post added 08-30-2014 at 06:14 PM ----------

nvm as i pressed enter and looked over he/she already walked back over and picked it up again lol
 

lacrosse5001

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
84
To answer your question more fully, tarantulas follow a "get it while the gettin's good" mentality. If you toss like 5 flies into an orb weaver's web, it'll deal with each on individually, making sure each one is bitten, killed, and wrapped up before moving on to others. Tarantulas (especially larger ones) will just keep grabbing food like there's no tomorrow, then bundle it up and wrap it if they can't eat it. You can see in feeding videos on youtube and the like that if the keeper tosses a 9 inch T. blondi 4 crickets, it grabs all 4 and crams them into its mouth. It might not eat all of them if it's already a little fat, but it won't hesitate to grab them all.
 

succinct

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 20, 2014
Messages
28
OBT will kill and leave. They don't like living things, let alone living things in their cage. I would check for mites on the mouth. If you have an infestation, they will be little white/tan/black dots covering the fangs and mouth. If it was not a OBT I would say it was mites. Check for them, just pour some water near her, she will try to bite it and check her mouth.

Any other tarantula, the behavior is a mite problem, but with an OBT, it could be just over defensiveness.
 

philthyxphil

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 22, 2014
Messages
46
Any other tarantula, the behavior is a mite problem, but with an OBT, it could be just over defensiveness.
I have many Ts that will kill the prey and come back to it later, specifically an E cyanognathus that behead crickets in its burrow, drags the headless body to the center of the enclosure, only to eat the remainder overnight.
 

succinct

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 20, 2014
Messages
28
I have many Ts that will kill the prey and come back to it later, specifically an E cyanognathus that behead crickets in its burrow, drags the headless body to the center of the enclosure, only to eat the remainder overnight.
Honestly, I don't feed live prey in years. After almost 30 years of keeping tarantulas, your reported behavior is odd. It shows signs of the tarantula not being secure in its housing. Stress and over defensiveness go hand and hand. I would check the conditions of the enclosure and make sure the environmental are up to standards.

Tarantulas have two very different bites. One is a defensive bite that only delivers venom. The other is a bite that delivers venom and digestive enzymes.

If your tarantula is killing prey without eating it, then it is a stress educed defensive attack. In saying that, why are you feeding live prey if she will eat prekilled?
 

philthyxphil

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 22, 2014
Messages
46
If your tarantula is killing prey without eating it, then it is a stress educed defensive attack. In saying that, why are you feeding live prey if she will eat prekilled?
It's interesting you mentioned that because I recently had to rehouse my E cyanognathus due to the substrate being too wet (misinformation lead me to saturate the substrate and has since been corrected). I've fed prekilled crickets to slings before, what are the benefits of feeding all my Ts prekilled, besides if they are in premolt?
 

dredrickt

Arachnoknight
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
Messages
170
Honestly, I don't feed live prey in years. After almost 30 years of keeping tarantulas, your reported behavior is odd. It shows signs of the tarantula not being secure in its housing. Stress and over defensiveness go hand and hand. I would check the conditions of the enclosure and make sure the environmental are up to standards.

Tarantulas have two very different bites. One is a defensive bite that only delivers venom. The other is a bite that delivers venom and digestive enzymes.

If your tarantula is killing prey without eating it, then it is a stress educed defensive attack. In saying that, why are you feeding live prey if she will eat prekilled?
Tarantulas wouldn't have hunting and attack instincts if they weren't meant to kill live prey.

Many of my T's will kill prey and then wait, which I presume is to make sure there isn't more prey available to snatch up. After maybe 30 minutes (sometimes less) they will begin eating.
 

philthyxphil

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 22, 2014
Messages
46
Tarantulas wouldn't have hunting and attack instincts if they weren't meant to kill live prey.

Many of my T's will kill prey and then wait, which I presume is to make sure there isn't more prey available to snatch up. After maybe 30 minutes (sometimes less) they will begin eating.
+1 to that
 

goodoldneon

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 25, 2011
Messages
243
Honestly, I don't feed live prey in years. After almost 30 years of keeping tarantulas, your reported behavior is odd. It shows signs of the tarantula not being secure in its housing. Stress and over defensiveness go hand and hand. I would check the conditions of the enclosure and make sure the environmental are up to standards.

Tarantulas have two very different bites. One is a defensive bite that only delivers venom. The other is a bite that delivers venom and digestive enzymes.

If your tarantula is killing prey without eating it, then it is a stress educed defensive attack. In saying that, why are you feeding live prey if she will eat prekilled?
Can you elaborate please? Because, well, everything you've said strikes me as odd or just wrong (with the exception of dry vs. wet bites).
 

philthyxphil

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 22, 2014
Messages
46
@viper69 @goodoldneon thank you, I'm new to the hobby so for a second there I was very confused
 

dredrickt

Arachnoknight
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
Messages
170
Can you elaborate please? Because, well, everything you've said strikes me as odd or just wrong (with the exception of dry vs. wet bites).
Same here. Seems to me, only feeding prekilled would condition a tarantula to begin to lose its hunting instincts over a few generations. Reintroduce them to the wild, and they are nothing but food for something else. Someone only feeding prekilled would never notice this though, because they are only feeding prekilled...
 

freedumbdclxvi

Arachnoprince
Joined
May 28, 2012
Messages
1,426
Tarantulas have two very different bites. One is a defensive bite that only delivers venom. The other is a bite that delivers venom and digestive enzymes.
No. The fangs do *not* deliver the enzymes. The enzymes are regurgitated onto the prey item as the tarantula mashes up the prey.

---------- Post added 08-31-2014 at 03:16 PM ----------

OBT will kill and leave. They don't like living things, let alone living things in their cage.
OBTs aren't Daleks - they don't hate life. Your comment regarding defensiveness could apply to most African baboons or Asian species as well.
 

viper69

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 8, 2006
Messages
17,851
Same here. Seems to me, only feeding prekilled would condition a tarantula to begin to lose its hunting instincts over a few generations.

The millions of years of evolution that is literally hard wired into their genetics would never ever disappear in a few generations.
 

LordWaffle

Arachnobaron
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
451
OBT will kill and leave. They don't like living things, let alone living things in their cage. I would check for mites on the mouth. If you have an infestation, they will be little white/tan/black dots covering the fangs and mouth. If it was not a OBT I would say it was mites. Check for them, just pour some water near her, she will try to bite it and check her mouth.

Any other tarantula, the behavior is a mite problem, but with an OBT, it could be just over defensiveness.
This is misinformation. Where did you get that idea?
 

Smokehound714

Arachnoking
Joined
Mar 23, 2013
Messages
3,091
tarantulas do cache prey. It could be your OBT just wasnt hungry at the moment, and wants to save it for later. It will remember where the food is.


Spiders arent like insects, they have sophisticated brains in comparison. They are capable of planning ahead.
 

Rayenicole

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 24, 2013
Messages
30
OBT will kill and leave. They don't like living things, let alone living things in their cage. I would check for mites on the mouth. If you have an infestation, they will be little white/tan/black dots covering the fangs and mouth. If it was not a OBT I would say it was mites. Check for them, just pour some water near her, she will try to bite it and check her mouth.

Any other tarantula, the behavior is a mite problem, but with an OBT, it could be just over defensiveness.
This is a bunch of nonsense. OP, if your T grabs up prey and sets it to the side then that's what it does. Mine do it from time to time.
 

GG80

Arachnoknight
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
268
Mine has wrapped up prey and left it for a while on a few occasions only to return and eat it later. They know where the prey is and will take it when they want. It shouldn't be a big issue.
 
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