Well I just had a terrifying experience...

miss moxie · Jan 21, 2015

And it had absolutely nothing to do with anything my tarantulas did. I buy my crickets, 100 at a time online. Closest place to me that sells crickets is 35 minutes away, so it's just easier this way. The only tarantulas I have that can't eat small/medium crickets are my five slings. So what I do for them is I crush the heads, then I cut them off and cut the cricket into sizable pieces. (If you don't crush the head, it stays animated for a surprisingly long time and it made me feel kind of bad. Like it stares at me and whispers- 'I can't feel my legs...' I'm sorry Lt. Dan-cricket. I'm sorry...) I had my headless cricket, cut in half with one leg missing for my pair of A. purpurea slings sitting in a little dish. I had just placed the half without the legs into the one enclosure and was reaching for the second (both kept on a shelf that is chest level, so the half-cricket was chest level) and bam. The cricket kicked itself out of the dish and right up into my face.

I didn't scream or react really, just shuddered in absolute disgust and surprise. Ugh, I feel like I need to shower five times in clorox. I'm not the biggest cricket fan. I can grab them and they don't give me the creeps, I just don't like them very much. But don't think my collection is big enough to try a roach colony.

Anyone else have any 'I love spiders but my feeders make me uncomfortable' stories?

Tim Benzedrine · Jan 21, 2015

Not really a horror story, but i hate how cricket chunks will sometimes affix themselves to the tongs (or your finger) and it seems that sometimes no anount of shaking will dislodge the piece. And sometimes when it does, it goes where you really didn't intend it to, like onto the side of the container. Where it again sticks. Bleah.

miss moxie · Jan 21, 2015

Exactly. The only courteous thing for them to do would be to not have organs the consistency of super glue.

Tim Benzedrine · Jan 21, 2015

Agreed. Not to worry, I'll hire a nanny for the slice, dice and feed chores for our brood.

miss moxie · Jan 21, 2015

Tim Benzedrine said:
Agreed. Not to worry, I'll hire a nanny for the slice, dice and feed chores for our brood.

Thank god. I just want to be one of those glamorous housewives that cook and look pretty. We should hire a nanny that is a tarantula. Eight arms for slicin' and dicin'.

Or maybe she'll eat the kids... Let's go back to human nanny.

Tim Benzedrine · Jan 21, 2015

You'll cook? Score!

And yeah, we'll go with a human nanny for sure. We don't want a "Hey, have you seen Rodney?" 'mmmf, mmf! un-uh! Mmmf!" scenario.

Bill Myers · Jan 21, 2015

Hey, even I, a beetle and cricket breeder, got grossed out the other day. I was squishing the heads of some crickets with long, thin needle nosed pliers to feed my T's when brain matter popped out of one of the crickets and flew straight into my eye!!!

Talk about freaked out! I ran into the kitchen and immediately flushed my eye with water. But, all I could think was I'm going to get some new eye disease that no one has ever heard about, LOL.

Cheers

Ghost Dragon · Jan 21, 2015

Tim Benzedrine said:
Not really a horror story, but i hate how cricket chunks will sometimes affix themselves to the tongs (or your finger) and it seems that sometimes no anount of shaking will dislodge the piece. And sometimes when it does, it goes where you really didn't intend it to, like onto the side of the container. Where it again sticks. Bleah.

It sometimes makes me think that cricket guts are part radioactive waste.....and part Velcro.:laugh:

Tarantula Fangs · Jan 21, 2015

Huh, I do kind of get grossed out with crickets though, they really are nasty little buggers, I've seen a video where they eat a pinkie! They will eat anything. :/

Poec54 · Jan 21, 2015

BTW, I wear disposable gloves every time I'm working with crickets, whether that's feeding spiders or cleaning cricket cages.

awiec · Jan 21, 2015

I wash my hands whenever I touch my feeders, I'm aware of the diseases they can carry and I have a pricey collection of plants that I don't want to infect with various molds that use crickets as vectors. Though I actually just slight crush their neck which disables the cricket, the organs stay inside and they still twitch; I do not feel bad one bit as I actually hate crickets and were terrified of them for a long time.

cold blood · Jan 21, 2015

I had the same experience last night....except I didn't try to eat it...lol. Crushed and took the head off one...went to further dismember it...but I couldn't catch it, the headless body was no less lively....little

oop:s

I can't tell you how often I wash my hands when dealing with these things.

TypicalCricket · Jan 21, 2015

I'm fine with feeder bugs, and most bugs in general, but I really can't handle moths for some reason. Little ones are fine but if one of those big fat ones flies into my face I'm done. I wonder how good one of those would be to feed to a tarantula...

Misty Day · Jan 21, 2015

I once accidentally dropped a box of 800 mealworms on my bedroom floor. The clean-up was not fun.

Tarantula Fangs · Jan 21, 2015

I've wondered the exact same thing, It would probably be easier to feed arboreals that way.

Tfisher · Jan 21, 2015

I like my crickets.. I love my hissing roaches. And dubias. I'm an all around bug fan which is odd bc I wash my hands every min or so.

woadiestlye · Jan 21, 2015

That cricket was like vin diesel "i'm in your face"! Haha

Ellenantula · Jan 21, 2015

I consider my crix and roaches almost like pets. I'm sorta sad when I gotta feed them to the Ts.
I have never killed one, I just pick an appropriate size for adult/sling -- whatever I am feeding.
I do over-clean their enclosure, but I have never seen a mite or anything and mine don't appear to cannibalize each other (although if they are, guess they would eat the evidence. lol).
Mine are so tame I can do a of maintenance without them all running into hiding anymore.
I am a hand washer -- but I wash before and after maintenance.
If I were so inclined to eat insects (which I'm not but many in the world do) I would consider mine amongst the cleanest, organically fed and healthiest for human consumption.
But to eat one, yannoe.....yuck!

Drache · Jan 21, 2015

Ellenantula said:
But to eat one, yannoe.....yuck!

On days when I consider the matter, I try to think of them as a sort of land-dwelling shrimp. So far it hasn't gotten me any further than to contemplate spices and condiments.
Nothing grosser than barfed up nightcrawler though - doesn't even have to get anywhere near your face.

horanjp · Jan 21, 2015

My favorite is when you chop off their heads, but the (notochord?) is still attached to the head...plop in you go....2 days later....cricket heals itself. Reattached. Head. To self. Resilient little nightmares....just die like a good din din.

Well I just had a terrifying experience...

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