Does T diet effect? Adult female size???

Ultum4Spiderz

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I was wondering from the more experienced keepers/T breeders if A certain diet or varied diet/ similar to wild T diet raises larger females. Or if Female size is just genetic.
 
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JZC

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Theoretically it should, there is tremendous scientific evidence that supports the fact that environmental factors can influence gene expression.
 

Poec54

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It would take a detailed, side-by-side study of a number of specimens, of a number of species to have any kind of a conclusive answer. I'm not aware of that being done. How would you know what 'varied diets' are valid for the species? They eat things in the wild we can't provide them. And those themselves are eating things we don't have.

It's a good idea to give your feeders nutritious food, but as far as giving a spider what it's evolved to eat, we don't know for the vast majority of species and we probably can't provide it anyways if we did. There may be things missing in captive spider's diets, and we don't know what those are, which may or may not make a difference (and if so, a difference in what?). Those things aren't necessarily going to be found in anything we're able to feed them.
 

Hanska

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It would take a detailed, side-by-side study of a number of specimens, of a number of species to have any kind of a conclusive answer. I'm not aware of that being done. How would you know what 'varied diets' are valid for the species? They eat things in the wild we can't provide them. And those themselves are eating things we don't have.

It's a good idea to give your feeders nutritious food, but as far as giving a spider what it's evolved to eat, we don't know for the vast majority of species and we probably can't provide it anyways if we did. There may be things missing in captive spider's diets, and we don't know what those are, which may or may not make a difference (and if so, a difference in what?). Those things aren't necessarily going to be found in anything we're able to feed them.
I read an old thread in the true spider section where a few experienced keepers were among other things talking about how their wandering spiders seem to max out at 3-4" and their WC parents were around 5-6".
I'm sure diet and other conditions can affect a spiders final size but like you said it's just not possible to know how.
 

Poec54

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I'm sure diet and other conditions can affect a spiders final size but like you said it's just not possible to know how.
And if it does, it's not going to apply equally to all species of tarantulas.
 

xkris

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its not rocket science.
varied diet = not a cricket every time.

you cant give them everything they would catch in the wild, you can give them different stuff that you can find for them.
lets not over-think it.
 

Poec54

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its not rocket science.
varied diet = not a cricket every time.

you cant give them everything they would catch in the wild, you can give them different stuff that you can find for them.
lets not over-think it.

How do you know there's any benefit to that? A 'varied' diet of captive feeders may give them things that they don't get in the wild, and that may not be particularly beneficial to them; it may take them further from what they eat in the wild. There's not enough known to assume you're automatically doing something positive.
 

xkris

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oh, thats a double edged sword you got there:)

they are not just predators, but also opportunistic, they will eat lots of different things that they come across.
how do you know there isn't any harm by giving them only 1 type of food entire life? every form of life needs variety, why not spiders?
 

ratluvr76

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oh, thats a double edged sword you got there:)

they are not just predators, but also opportunistic, they will eat lots of different things that they come across.
how do you know there isn't any harm by giving them only 1 type of food entire life? every form of life needs variety, why not spiders?
Koala bears don't....:tongue::wink:;P
 
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