Spidey, my chilean rose hair, was my first tarantula. I got her in 2013 and she won a big spot in my heart right away. But despite all the research I did, nothing could prepare me for how weird and challenging adjusting to her weird feeding quirks would be. So I share my experience in hopes that it will help you, perhaps ease some anxiety for you, and give you insight into some challenges you may face.

Let’s start with her species. Not all chilean rose hair tarantulas are like this, but the species has a reputation of going on super long and random starvation (fasting) periods and being temperamental eaters. In Spidey’s case, this has been true for most of my time with her. Her longest fasting period was over a year and a half and it was terrifying for me! I thought there was something wrong with her but she continued to look plump and hydrate herself in the water dish. I hear this can happen – some rose hairs have even gone longer without eating – it’s not fun! It’s really scary the first time it happens. But now I’m used to Spidey fasting for 6 months or more at a time – especially in premolt or in the winter months when her metabolism slows down and she goes into her seasonal spider hibernation mode.

So not only have her feeding periods been a journey of many lessons, but finding the right way to feed her has been a challenge as well. I’ve tried a few different feeders before settling on cockroaches.

I first started out with crickets, but this was hard for Spidey to catch them. My chilean rose hair is an older tarantula and I realized she would often not be able to catch the crickets. It was heartbreaking to see her miss them when she tried to jump! So I tried this for a few months and eventually realized it wasn’t working out and researched other feeding options. I was happy to stop messing with crickets because I realized that crickets were hard to keep alive even when regularly giving them food – they had a high rate of cannibalism even when well fed, and often died in a few days despite my efforts to keep them alive. They were also noisy and smelly, which I hated.

Superworms were my next choice because they were slow. Unfortunately, while these were easier for her to catch, they still managed to get away sometimes which was a disaster lol. These things would burrow in her substrate and make a mess of her tank if I couldn’t catch them. But the good news was that Spidey could catch them more easily and she actually really liked digging them up, which was very cute. She would let the worms burrow under her webs and then do this adorable tapping movement with her feet on her webs to sense the worms, dig them up then pounce!

Fortunately, I wasn’t willing to do a complete tank change every time Spidey let a worm get away. So I devised a feeding system to make my life and hers easier. Basically, I got a little Kritter Keeper which would serve as a feeding tank, where I would put the worm and Spidey. I eventually moved this tank into Spidey’s larger tank so she could go in and out as she pleased and the worm would be trapped until she was ready for it. Spidey loved this system (and so did I because the worms weren’t roaming free in her tank) and it made it much easier for her to catch them. Here she is, letting a worm get away (typical chilean rose hair behavior lol):

Heres the mini tank system in her larger tank. I kept the mini tank as part of her tank for years as she really liked it. Even if a worm wasn’t in the tank, Spidey would spend tons of time in there and often retreat to it at night and treat it as her little “bedroom” lol.

I think she just likes the feeling of being cozy lol. So this worked for us for a long time! However, while I found the mealworms to be a little easier to keep alive than crickets, but it seemed the most they would stay alive for was 2-3 weeks if I was lucky. Considering that Spidey loves to fast for weeks and months at a time, this was inconvenient. They were constantly dying, eating each other, and I’d have to keep buying them. The superworms, were also very stinky and gross like the cockroaches.

One thing that’s been interesting is Spidey’s plump figure. On her Tumblr blog, I would often get comments about how I was overfeeding her, despite the fact that she was hardly eating at all. She just has always been a round girl! She sometimes gets a little smaller and thinner after a molt but she plumps right up after eating. I rarely have every given her more than one feeder in a feeding. During her consistent eating times, I would only be giving her one medium sized feeder every week or two. So one thing that intrigued me was something one of her followers suggested, which was that the superworms might be impacting her appetite and nutrition negatively due to their fatty content. This could be why she was more plump, and also why she was going on long fasts. Considering that I didn’t like the superworms to begin with, I was happy to try cockroaches, which was suggested for their high protein content.

There are a lot of different varieties of cockroaches, I use dubias because they were the kind my local exotics shop, Ill Exotics, had and Spidey likes them. Roaches are what I had the most success with for many reasons – they don’t burrow, they are slow enough for Spidey to get them, they don’t smell, and they live for a long time without much effort by me. Oh, AND they reproduce quickly, allowing me to grow a colony that sustains itself so I don’t have to get feeders too often.

The first time I gave Spidey a roach, I wasn’t sure she’d like it and it did take her a while to pounce because the roach kept playing dead. But it turns out she loves them! She can suck on a roach for hours lol. They’ve been a far better solution not only due to the reasons I mentioned above, but it also did same to have some improvement on her appetite. Spidey’s abdomen didn’t get nearly as round as it used to (although it is still pretty big lol) and she was eating much more regularly with less weird long fasts. Don’t get me wrong, she STILL fasts when not in premolt and I just accept this as part of her weird personality lol. But it’s definitely been less, her feeding periods have gotten longer and she is more willing to accept food after fasting for a little. So I’ve been very happy with the results and likely will keep her on the roaches.

Another thing I really like about the roaches is that they are so fast-friendly if she decides to stop eating for several weeks. I have had my roaches for over a year now and only have one die occasionally. All they need are some produce scraps and you can leave them for days. They are very hardy. This was also a very convenient solution when I got Blinky, my baby Arizona blonde sling, because I was able to give Blinky the tiny baby roaches that came from Spideys roaches that reproduced.

This is the solution that works for me and my spiders now, and how we got to it. As you can see, it’s a lot of trial and error, adjusting, and paying attention to your spiders’ needs. I share this so you don’t get discouraged along your journey to being a tarantula owner, and hope it will help you get unstuck if you are struggling. Feel free to reach out with questions!

To learn more about tarantula care, check out my tarantula guide!