How often and how much should i feed my juvenile curly hair ?

[Nito99]

Managed to get my t to eat a live mealworm about an hour ago and it got me thinking, how often should i be feeding the little guy ? The mealworm i gave him was a reasonable size, i saw online that a decent amount is 3-4 a week but it doesnt specify whether that is all at once or every couple of days ? And would it be wise to change his feeders every once in a while or just stick to the worms ? Ill attach a pic but its not exactly 10/10 glare from the enclosure ruins it a tad :3 ....

 

[Vermis]

Hello! Nice spider. One of the first, and least problematic, that I started with.

Your tarantula already seems to be a pretty healthy size. With mealworms that comparatively big, I think 3-4 a week could soon result in a very swollen T! The most I feed is once or twice a week, and that strongly depends on prey size too. I think you could pare that down a lot more and your T wouldn't suffer too much. Take a look at Octanejunkie's stickied topic on the matter:

Underfeed vs overfeed

I am happy to share my observations, and philosophies, accumulated from keeping and feeding tarantulas in re feeding frequency. If you read no further; less is more when it comes to feeding tarantulas. Tarantulas are wild animals, they are not domesticated, and like most animals are...

tarantulaforum.com

I've read books and online experiences where a keeper might feed a large spider as many crickets as they can hold in their fangs at any one time, but again, that's got a bit to do with prey size and is followed by a longer period of no feeding. In your situation, maybe stick to one at a time.

It couldn't hurt to shake up the prey species from time to time. I think there's some obscure study on the nutrient content of mealworms that ended up with them being alternately praised as high in fat for sling/juvie growth and condemned as low in nutrients. Anyway, it's not something that would keep me up at night, but alternating with tubs of crickets or whatever feeders you can get wouldn't be too indulgent either.
(Based on my personal preference and your experience with millipedes, I don't think it'd be too impractical to set up a wee colony of pet/feeder roaches )

 

[Nito99]

Hello! Nice spider. One of the first, and least problematic, that I started with.

Your tarantula already seems to be a pretty healthy size. With mealworms that comparatively big, I think 3-4 a week could soon result in a very swollen T! The most I feed is once or twice a week, and that strongly depends on prey size too. I think you could pare that down a lot more and your T wouldn't suffer too much. Take a look at Octanejunkie's stickied topic on the matter:

Underfeed vs overfeed

I am happy to share my observations, and philosophies, accumulated from keeping and feeding tarantulas in re feeding frequency. If you read no further; less is more when it comes to feeding tarantulas. Tarantulas are wild animals, they are not domesticated, and like most animals are...

tarantulaforum.com

I've read books and online experiences where a keeper might feed a large spider as many crickets as they can hold in their fangs at any one time, but again, that's got a bit to do with prey size and is followed by a longer period of no feeding. In your situation, maybe stick to one at a time.

It couldn't hurt to shake up the prey species from time to time. I think there's some obscure study on the nutrient content of mealworms that ended up with them being alternately praised as high in fat for sling/juvie growth and condemned as low in nutrients. Anyway, it's not something that would keep me up at night, but alternating with tubs of crickets or whatever feeders you can get wouldn't be too indulgent either.
(Based on my personal preference and your experience with millipedes, I don't think it'd be too impractical to set up a wee colony of pet/feeder roaches )

Thanks for the detailed response my dude ! setting up some feeder roaches wouldnt be a bad idea at all, greatly appreciated!