Can Tarantulas Eat Dead Insects?
Tarantulas must be fed live feeder insects such as crickets, mealworms and cockroaches; occasionally they will accept freeze-dried grubs if you wiggle them to mimic their struggle for life.
Mealworms (the larvae of flour beetles or darkling beetles) are an ideal source of food for reptiles, and tarantulas also enjoy feasting upon them as feeder insects. Any uneaten mealworms should be removed quickly from the cage so as to avoid spoilage by pesticides or potential health risks.
Can Tarantulas Eat Dead Insects?
Tarantulas are animals renowned for being both opportunistic feeders and expert hunters, often taking prey in the form of insects, small reptiles, mammals or birds (Goliath bird eating spider). Tarantulas can often reach leg spans exceeding five inches, making them effective hunters with the capability of even capturing birds!
Mealworms are the preferred live food source for most tarantulas, as they contain high concentrations of protein. Although mealworms provide sufficient nutrition, they don’t fulfill all their nutrient needs for good health — therefore tarantulas should also be fed other live prey items such as crickets, cockroaches and locusts to ensure optimal health.
Some tarantulas will accept pre-killed food items like dead mealworms or crickets as food sources; however, others are less receptive and it is therefore essential that a constant source of live feeder insects be available so your pet remains fed at all times.
Nutritional Content of Dead Insects
Tarantulas can get most of their nutrition from digesting dead insects, though opportunistic feeders prefer prey that can easily be caught like live insects.
Tarantulas kept as captive pets can be fed a variety of live insects such as gut loaded mealworms, dubia roaches and crickets. However, only one type should be fed at a time as multiple foods could cause their abdomens to distend, creating serious health risks for them.
Feeding a tarantula too frequently can cause its metabolism to overwork itself and result in an obese animal. Therefore, it’s recommended to feed them at set intervals: once every 7–14 days for adult spiders and once weekly for juveniles.
Health Benefits and Risks of Dead Insects
Tarantulas are opportunistic feeders and will consume both dead insects as well as live prey, but if you decide to feed your tarantula dead crickets or feeder insects as food it’s advisable to “gut-load” them first with nutritious food to ensure the insects have all of the essential vitamins and hydration levels that your pet requires for optimum health and to minimize chances of them escaping and burrowing into substrate or other objects in its cage.
Tarantulas differ from most spiders by hunting for prey on the ground rather than spinning webs to capture it. Tarantulas have developed incredible vibration-sensitive senses on their legs which allow them to detect prey before ambushing it by striking with their powerful jaws, striking it with bites from their powerful chelae or jaws and then biting for the kill using their powerful jaws or chelae to release chemicals that liquefy victim flesh to be consumed into their stomachs by their predator.
Serving Size and Frequency of Feeding Dead Insects
Tarantulas are insectivores and will eat almost any insect they come across, hence why many tarantula owners raise colonies of feeder insects to provide fresh, live food to their pet spider. Though often dead insects will also suffice as meals.
Dead insects should only be given to your tarantula as occasional treats, since they do not offer adequate nutrition for their bodies. Too much dead prey consumption could lead to obesity in your pet; therefore it is wise to monitor its eating habits and only offer dead prey when absolutely necessary.
Removing any uneaten dead insects from your tarantula’s cage immediately is also vital, to prevent it from eating a parasite-infected corpse and becoming sick or injured from ingestion of parasites hiding within it.
Other Alternatives to Dead Insects
Mealworms may provide an attractive alternative to feeding dead insects to your tarantula, though be wary as mealworms are highly fatty and could lead to obesity in tarantulas; additionally, they do not contain all of the essential vitamins found in cockroaches and crickets.
Feed your tarantula grubs as an alternative food source — these larvae from different insect species provide essential nutrition to tarantulas, but make sure not to feed long-stored varieties as these may contain harmful toxins and bacteria which could harm them.
Some tarantula owners also feed their pet tarantulas dubia roaches, an excellent source of protein and other essential nutrients for reptiles and amphibians alike, to their pet tarantulas as food.
Conclusion about Eating Dead Insects
Tarantulas are opportunistic feeders, feeding on any dead prey they come across, including dehydrated meat that has decreased nutritional value over live prey. Therefore, it’s essential that fresh sources of food be offered regularly.
Consideration should also be given to the size of prey you feed to your tarantula, and should not exceed its leg span or body length. Larger prey may fight back and strain or kill its host tarantula.
Some pet owners employ a method called gut loading to prepare mealworms before feeding them to their tarantulas, in order to maximize their nutritional intake and help it gain weight if necessary. This process entails giving worms an abundantly nutritous diet for several days prior to being fed directly to a spider. This allows it to access every available resource from each worm’s meal, thus aiding weight gain if required.
