An Avicularia Avicularia is also known as pink toed tarantula or pink toed tree spider. This tarantula is a very hairy creature with dark black fur or grey hair distributed across the body. The male Avic can grow about 9 cm while the female can grow up to 13 cm. This tarantula species is a native of Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. If you own this tarantula, take a look at some interesting diet habits of this species.
Frequency of Feeding
The frequency of feeding frequency depends upon the growth stage of your Avicularia Avicularia. The feeding will vary accordingly with the sling, juvenile, or adult stage growth of your Avicularia.
Slings are incredibly fragile, and it is imperative to be careful with their feeding. The keepers of the slings report more frequent and unreasonable deaths than adults. The keepers of slings should make sure that they feed their pet every two or three days in this stage.
In the juvenile stage, when your tarantula is about 1.5–2″, your tarantula is out of its fragile stage, and you can begin feeding it larger prey items than before. At this point, your Avic might turn into an aggressive feeder. On the other hand, the adult Avic will go for steady meal intervals, and you can feed them twice or thrice a week.
Feeder Size
As a thumb rule, the feeding prey’s size should be according to the size of the abdomen of your tarantula. In the sling and juvenile stage, you should be careful with the size of the prey. Smaller prey would be more manageable by your tarantula, and it can have its way around the meals. For your sling tarantula, you should wait before offering another prey till it finishes the previous meal.
The critical thing to remember here is that your tarantula gets agitated if you drop in a bunch of feeders into the tank, especially at the sling stage. In the adult stage, you can throw in a couple of items into the tank, but it’s best to throw one item at a time.
Feeder Options
Crickets, mealworms, super worms, and Dubia roaches are some of the best feeding options for your Avic. You can also experiment between locusts, lobster roaches, and wax worms and test your pet’s likes and dislikes accordingly. The adult tarantulas can even consume vertebrates like lizards and frogs, but invertebrates are still among their favorites.
How to Feed?
Feeding the Avic can be quite challenging at the beginner level, but the professional keepers see it as an easy task. Here’s how you should feed your exotic pet.
- Open the enclosure carefully while keeping an eye on the position of your Avic from the enclosure so that it doesn’t escape. Make sure that you only open it as much as required.
- Drop the prey. You can also use tongs to hold the prey and feed your Avic.
- Close the enclosure and secure it firmly.
Feeding During Premolt
Your Avic might give up eating in the pre molting stage. Don’t panic at this stage. Offer prey again after some days. Observe the molt stage of your Avic.
Another tip in handy is to keep the tank clean so that there’s no inbreed of the prey.