If you’ve been following me for a while, one thing is clear: I love tarantulas and having a pet tarantula brings a significant amount of joy to my life. I mean, come on – I’ve spent hours making educational videos about tarantulas and spiders and even dedicated created a full blown tarantula guide – someone who doesn’t LOVE tarantulas just wouldn’t do that!

I’ve been super public with my love for Ts and been open about how adorable I think even their weirdest habits are – such as the tarantula happy dance to weird fasting periods, even down to talking about spider poop and pee! You name it, I have probably talked about it at some point lol. But even thought I have the ability to love even the most mundane or sometimes, gross tarantula behavior and mannerisms, there’s just one thing I CANNOT get down with even though I’ve been doing this for over 6 years. And sadly, it’s something that I have to do. A lot. Or else my beautiful darling tarantulas will DIE.

I hate feeding them. Now, let me explain. I know my precious babies need to eat and I would never compromise their livelihood for my own comfort. However, when I sit and think about what goes on in their enclosures after I drop a cricket or a roach in there, I start to slide into a mini depression. This wasn’t so much an issue when I give Blinky their little crickets, because the whole thing is usually over really quick. As long as I don’t focus on the word “baby”, it’s usually out of sight and out of mind for me. However I DID get incredibly sad when Spidey’s roaches had babies and I only had the baby roaches to give to Blinky. I started to get very sad that I was going to feed a baby roach to my baby spider. I muscled through it of course, and felt terrible for a while after.

But the real struggle is Spidey’s food. Spidey doesn’t eat crickets because she tends to be too slow for them. Worms, on the other hand, she loves. And now she loves roaches, which are the new staple in her diet due to their superior nutrition. When I see Spidey go after this bigger, juicier prey, it really brings out all the feels. More often than not, it’s not a fast death for these guys. There is a lot of guts and squirming involved, and often I am so horrified I need to look away and walk the feelings off. Especially the most recent time, when I fed Spidey a roach and she decided to not only put a fang through its head, but to eat it HEAD FIRST. Guts were oozing out, and the poor thing was struggling even 30 minutes later. I cannot imagine a worse way to die, in all honesty. It’s moments like these that make me temporarily hate myself a little. I know it’s all the circle of life and a matter of survival. But unlike Spidey, I have a heart and the knowledge that something is in pain or has died because of me will never sit right with me, even if it’s absolutely necessary.

I know some tarantula owners are absolutely thrilled and obsessed when their tarantulas make a kill – and to be honest, when Spidey and Blinky have a great takedown I am a super proud spider mom! But I don’t handle the aftermath as well unfortunately, and I think this is always going to be a part of the tarantula keeping hobby that I don’t enjoy.

Even in jobs that we love, there are certain tasks that we might not like as much – and I think for me, the feedings are my least favorite part of tarantula keeping. I love the beauty of tarantulas and their amazing mannerisms. I love the peace that I feel when I look at and study my spiders. I love caring for them, researching, and learning about them. But no, I do NOT want to watch them eat!

Can you relate?