My M. balfouris are terrified of food.

[Volkswachter]

All 3 of my M. Balfouri (2 males housed together, and one female in her own house) are TERRIFIED of food. It doesn't matter what I put in; small crickets, medium crickets, mealworms, etc; they all run away and hide from food.
One male is probably 2.5-3'' and the other is roughly 1.5-2''; and the female is 2'', they're freakin' wussbags; and I don't believe they're in premolt, they're all still a nice light gray in the booty. My males will go as far as walling their holes up within 2 hours of dropping a cricket in.

Compared to my L. parahybana slings who'll take down mealworms twice their size like fearless little rage-legs I just don't know what to do for the MBs, but I'm getting really tired of spending 20 minutes fishing crickets out of their houses.

 

[Arachnoclown]

Balfouri usually hunt in the dark. Have you tried that yet?

 

[Volkswachter]

Balfouri usually hunt in the dark. Have you tried that yet?

Sure have; I leave the crickets in for 24 hours, or longer if I can't find the darn things.

 

[Mundo exotico]

Mine was the same. It was running from food. After stablished in the enclosure she started to hunt crickets at night. I put much smaller prey than normal so she doesnt get scared

 

[timc]

i don’t imagine it’s an idea you want to hear with two spiders in one enclosure but trying skipping a feeding might work. If my spiders don’t eat this week they don’t get offered next week either. I’ve found this works well with fussy eaters.

 

[Volkswachter]

i don’t imagine it’s an idea you want to hear with two spiders in one enclosure but trying skipping a feeding might work. If my spiders don’t eat this week they don’t get offered next week either. I’ve found this works well with fussy eaters.

M. balfouri can be kept in large or small communal groups. While I'd love to have a larger population, 2 was all I could afford at the time.

 

[m0lsx]

My wifes P tigrinaweselli is similar. We have to give that small crickets, As medium/large crickets frighten it, the same with any size of roach. I also sometimes have to leave them in there for 48 hours, the same with one of my johnnycashi. 2 nights normally gets food eaten, 1 night often does not.

 

[Arachnoclown]

Balfouri are very timid and skittish. They are the cowards of the baboon world. For this reason I lost interest in this species years ago and moved on. I had a communal and sold them all. They rarely were out in the day and everything frightened them. Never saw them eat during the day once they matured. Very beautiful spiders though. A better communal spider would be Heterothele villosella (Tanzanian Chestnut Baboon).
I currently have a communal of 20. They are extremely fast and aggressive to their prey...yet they will share a meal with each other. Just my two cents from my experience.

 

[Volkswachter]

Balfouri are very timid and skittish. They are the cowards of the baboon world. For this reason I lost interest in this species years ago and moved on. I had a communal and sold them all. They rarely were out in the day and everything frightened them. Never saw them eat during the day once they matured. Very beautiful spiders though. A better communal spider would be Heterothele villosella (Tanzanian Chestnut Baboon).
I currently have a communal of 20. They are extremely fast and aggressive to their prey...yet they will share a meal with each other. Just my two cents from my experience.

I'm noticing that now lol; although my female finally did eat a cricket, and she's a lot more active than the males are. She's basically like this all day every day; threat posing her house or scuttling around webbing the moss and hide up.View attachment PICT0048.jpg

 

[Konstantin]

Balfouri are very timid and skittish. They are the cowards of the baboon world. For this reason I lost interest in this species years ago and moved on. I had a communal and sold them all. They rarely were out in the day and everything frightened them. Never saw them eat during the day once they matured. Very beautiful spiders though. A better communal spider would be Heterothele villosella (Tanzanian Chestnut Baboon).
I currently have a communal of 20. They are extremely fast and aggressive to their prey...yet they will share a meal with each other. Just my two cents from my experience.

Hi
Will you mind sharing more info on that Heterothele villosella communal you have going please.
How long you have it going for?Do you have to restrict space in order to avoid them establishing own individual territory ?Do you have to keep the littleones togetherfrom birth or can mix 1cm slings from same sack.....
Maybe post some pics if you have some
Regards Konstantin