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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tortoise Tom" data-source="post: 151879" data-attributes="member: 27883">I suspect some other issue. I've had many large spiders over the years and they've all eaten smaller prey items. I had 6" smithii (Now called hamorii in some cases...) and big adult gramostolla species that ate several crickets per meal. When I discovered roaches as a food source in the 90's things got much simpler. I currently have a 7+ inch T. stirmi and a 13 year old G. pulchra female that is around 6 inches, and both eat male dubia. I usually feed each of them one adult male dubia once or twice a week. I have several 4-5 inch tarantulas that still take one inch adult B. lateralis in an instant. Many times the roach doesn't even hit the ground.A. geniculata are fantastic eaters. I have three of them. If it isn't taking dubia, something else might be wrong. Try using a smaller dubia and smooshing the head. Drop the roach on its back near the spider. The flailing should get the spiders attention. If not, the tarantula might not be hungry, or it might be getting ready to molt.We can't get locusts here but there are several easy-to-breed or buy roach species here that are quite large. Several in the Blaberus genus work quite well for feeding larger tarantula. In the past I bred Blaberus craniifer, discoidalis, boliviensis,  fusca and Eublaberus prosticus, with no issues. I had more than I knew what to do with. The giant cave roaches, B. giganteus do not breed well and are difficult to get to survive well. It took a long time to grow that colony. About half of whatever was bought or bred would die for no reason. I did better with the Archimandrita tesselata, which is actually bigger and heavier than B. giganteus, but not as long. I think A. tesselata is too slow to breed for tarantula food. Slower than hissers. I've fed medium hissers to spiders, but man, the big ones are pretty well armored and those leg spines are gnarly.Anyhow, if you feel like you need something the size of a locust, the bigger roach species might serve your purposes.</blockquote>

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