Force Feeding, not Power Feeding...

Heartfang · May 2, 2005

Is it safe to force feed a T? I have a male species I found here in California, and it has not eaten since September. I have been offering it food every two weeks since he last ate, but to no avail. I got really worried and decided to watch him while I put in a good sized cricket. What I saw got me thinking. He would try and grab the cricket, but he was so slow that he would miss when he tried to grab it. I then got really worried and decided to get him a little ticked off and put up a threat pose (Which I have never been able to do until today), while holding a cricket with some tweezers in front of his fangs. Well, I did manage to get him a little mad, and he threw up his display, and I put the cricket right between his fangs and "Whap!" He nailed the little sucker and has been happily munching on him since. Do you think it is safe to force feed him like this?

Wolfy72 · May 2, 2005

Heartfang said:
Is it safe to force feed a T? I have a male species I found here in California, and it has not eaten since September. I have been offering it food every two weeks since he last ate, but to no avail. I got really worried and decided to watch him while I put in a good sized cricket. What I saw got me thinking. He would try and grab the cricket, but he was so slow that he would miss when he tried to grab it. I then got really worried and decided to get him a little ticked off and put up a threat pose (Which I have never been able to do until today), while holding a cricket with some tweezers in front of his fangs. Well, I did manage to get him a little mad, and he threw up his display, and I put the cricket right between his fangs and "Whap!" He nailed the little sucker and has been happily munching on him since. Do you think it is safe to force feed him like this?

I've found that if they aint hungry, they wont eat.

Arachnomaniak · May 2, 2005

Do you have any idea how old he is? Could be that he's had his last moult and just doesn't want to eat... Most of my T's eat like clockwork once a week. Never really heard of force feeding a T but if he's munching it now might not be a bad idea if he doesn't eat for a few months. Maybe we'll get some posts from other people who have had the same experience.
Until then, good luck!

AphonopelmaTX · May 2, 2005

There's no way to actually force feed a spider of any kind. What you were doing sounds more like restraining an oversized prey item to make it an easier kill for the spider. Tweezer feeding if you will. This sort of thing can be done with any gender of species at any size. In fact, I've done the same thing with many arboreal and terrestrial tarantulas without making them angry. Not because they were weak; I did so just for the heck of it. I can never recommend putting a tarantula in a defensive mode to try and force it to eat. If it won't take a "good sized" cricket, try something smaller. If it doesn't eat at all, then don't worry about it. Mature males eventually stop eating at one point. It's part of their lifecycle and you're not doing it a favor by throwing food at it.

- Lonnie

Tarangela · May 3, 2005

Personally, I think that is really cool! I say do what works

Cerbera · May 18, 2006

Yes, I'd love to be beaten round the head with a chicken until I ate it !

ShadowBlade · May 18, 2006

Okay, first off, making a T threat pose so it will eat, not good.
But a spider won't eat if it doesn't want to. You just happened to make him eat it at that time.

ghost6303 · May 19, 2006

i dont think that making the spider go into the defense mode to eat is such a good idea, you can always try breaking the legs, somewhat mafia style, of the cricket so it cant get away so fast. but other then that if he dont want to eat then he doesnt want to eat.

MRL · May 20, 2006

Heartfang said:
Is it safe to force feed a T? I have a male species I found here in California, and it has not eaten since September. I have been offering it food every two weeks since he last ate, but to no avail. I got really worried and decided to watch him while I put in a good sized cricket. What I saw got me thinking. He would try and grab the cricket, but he was so slow that he would miss when he tried to grab it. I then got really worried and decided to get him a little ticked off and put up a threat pose (Which I have never been able to do until today), while holding a cricket with some tweezers in front of his fangs. Well, I did manage to get him a little mad, and he threw up his display, and I put the cricket right between his fangs and "Whap!" He nailed the little sucker and has been happily munching on him since. Do you think it is safe to force feed him like this?

Is he already matured? All he wants is some females no food. I can not think of any way to force feed a T and it's interesting how you were able to do it.

lucanidae · May 20, 2006

As for force-feeding, check out some of the posts from people who have had T's break/bad molt their chelicerae. They need to force feed these spiders to get them to their next molt. Mostly it involves crushing up a cricket and placing it in the mouth.

As for mature males not eating, within the first 6 months mature males will eat. I don't know how all the rumors started, but just in the past 4 months I've dealt with over 20 recently molted to 8 month old mature males all of which would take crickets on a regular basis; appx weekly to biweekly. Regular feeding of mature males 'seems' to lead to faster production of sperm webs between matings.

NYCspiderGuy · May 21, 2006

I have a mature male A.versi who tries but misses like your story.

I never thought of it as "force-feeding" but rather hand-feeding.
I don't know if you need to get it to "threaten" by bugging the T, but mine does something like a threat pose while taking crix from my tweezers. I wonder if I should do it, but as long as he takes one and eats it, I keep offering. (It often takes more than one before he catches it AND keeps it... they get out of his clutches more than once.)

I was just getting out his tank to do it when I saw the post.
Maybe try without annoying it first... I am sure you only want to help. I feel the same about watching mine not eat for months... worried dad.

MeinTeil8869 · Sep 3, 2011

Do you know what kind of T it is? Because my G.Rosea didn't eat for almost a year before it reached it's maturity molt so it may just be taking it is easy. I wouldn't worry about it though when it's hungry it will eat or you never know it may just be old and slow or taking them when you're not looking. Just keep trying and making sure it's got plenty of water to stay hydrated and you're good my man the T isn't stupid if it's hungry he'll get em' eventually.

tarantulagirl10 · Sep 3, 2011

MeinTeil8869 said:
Do you know what kind of T it is? Because my G.Rosea didn't eat for almost a year before it reached it's maturity molt so it may just be taking it is easy. I wouldn't worry about it though when it's hungry it will eat or you never know it may just be old and slow or taking them when you're not looking. Just keep trying and making sure it's got plenty of water to stay hydrated and you're good my man the T isn't stupid if it's hungry he'll get em' eventually.

This thread is 5 years old LOL

Force Feeding, not Power Feeding...

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