Chaco sling and mealworms

[beenzsouflee]

Hello thanks for reading! I recently got a Chaco golden knee sling. he/she is only a few months old about the size of a dime i would say...maybe a bit bigger. I have had my sling for about three weeks now and in that time he has only eaten one cricket! i know he may be getting ready molt but i havent noticed any changes in his coloring. anyway i still offer him food every few days and if he doesnt eat it within a few hours i take it out. i have noticed that the crickets seem to irritate him...like he is afraid of them almost (i offer him pinhead crickets that are never larger than his body) so i started offering mealworms. my question is...and it may seem a bit silly ..how do i know if he is eating the mealworms? when i looked in today there was a mealworm corpse that was pure white. does that mean he ate it? or that the mealworm just died. as this is my first T im not really sure what the leftovers should look like hahah! any imput would be appreciated

 

[DalilahBlue]

Try killing the prey items before offering. This makes it easier on the slings as most of them as scavengers (this dosen't stop them from "stalking" and "killing" their prey though). After 24 hours or so remove the dead prey or scraps. Sometimes prey that is too big or active can stress out the wee ones.

 

[beenzsouflee]

ah yes i have read about having to prekill! thanks! ill try it with the crickets. But as far as the meal worms go ....i cant tell if he is really eating them or if they are just dying? not sure what a meal worm is supposed to look like once its been eaten by a spider. i know when they eat the crickets there is pretty much nothing left.

 

[Bast]

I've never fed any of my T's worms before, but I would assume there wouldn't be much left of a worm either if the T did eat it. Although depending on the size of the worms, maybe a T of that size would be full before it finished? Someone mentioned in another thread about knocking the crickets around a bit, kind of dazing them, before giving them to the slings, so they're not so fast...maybe you could try that?

 

[Kurt Nelson]

If my slings are smaller than maybe an inch and a half I will pre kill. Mainly because I can't find prey small enough. But this way it insures that if they molt or something they aren't going to get munched on. I had a surprise versi molt within the last couple days, and had I put in live pray it could have potentially been bad!