Tarantula Diet

What Do Tarantulas eat?

- Tarantulas eat multiple types of food. Depending on their size and species, Tarantulas will each insects, small reptile, small rodents, and even small birds.

-For the most part, pet Tarantulas are strick insectivores. Average size pet Tarantulas should be comsuming insects such as crickets, meal worms, grasshoppers, June beetles, cicadas, and caterpillers. For larger individuals, pet owners can consider larger prey items such as small frogs and toads or even small mice.

How Often Should I Feed My Pet Tarantula?

-Tarantulas can actually go upwards to a month without food. So your pet Taratunal does not need to be fed every single day. They should be fed once or twice a week at most. Even if you were to try and feed you pet more often, the Tarantula will most likely refuse to eat the insect anyways.

How Much Should I Feed My Pet Tarantula/ Recommended Diet?

-As stated before, you should feed your pet probably once or twice a week depending on the health and size of the animal. As for the amount you should feed your pet, this also depends on the size of the animal. Most likely the Taranula, for an average sized adult spider, will only need to be fed about 2 to 3 crickets per week. While this seems low, Tarantulas are capable of going long time spans without food and this is a sufficient amount. Also, always make sure to have a shallow water bowl in the cage with water at all times.

-One important thing you need to realize as an owner is that the amount of nutrients your animal is recieving depends on the amount of nutrients its prey is consuming. Crickets are a recommended diet for Tarantulas but the crickets need to be gut loaded before feeding them to the Tarantula. Gut loading is simply feeding your crickets high nutritional foods inorder for them be give nutrients to the Tarantula.

How Will I Know If My Tarantula Is Malnurished or Dehydrated?

-A key way to see if you need to increase feeding amounts or if your pet is dehydrated is if the animal's abdomen is shriveled. In this case, feed the animal right away and refill its water dish.