Widows

[Rick]

So I have two wild-collected female black widows that I am trying to keep alive. Does anyone know what they prefer to eat? I have a cricket in with each spider but they haven't attempted to eat them. The crickets are probably larger than the spider though. Wondering if they would prefer something smaller.

Any advice would be welcome.

 

[Bugguy]

I feed mine house flies.

 

[Specimen24-7]

You must wait till they make there webbing. Then you can toss in the insect, once they develop the web they can take down prey much larger then themselves. If your females are adults there is a good chance they can be gravid.

 

[Rick]

You must wait till they make there webbing. Then you can toss in the insect, once they develop the web they can take down prey much larger then themselves. If your females are adults there is a good chance they can be gravid.

They were in the containers for a couple days before I put the crickets in.

 

[Specimen24-7]

Try removing the crickets from the widows inclosure( be careful while doing it), crickets can pose a treat to widows when the widows are not hungry. Wait a while then try to feed them again in a few days to a week. They are known to be veracious eaters it's rather peculiar for them to refuse food :/ If you can, post images of these widows and there inclosure.

 

[Rick]

Try removing the crickets from the widows inclosure( be careful while doing it), crickets can pose a treat to widows when the widows are not hungry. Wait a while then try to feed them again in a few days to a week. They are known to be veracious eaters it's rather peculiar for them to refuse food :/ If you can, post images of these widows and there inclosure.

I was thinking of doing just that. They are just Southern black widows housed in 32 oz insect cups. I am just holding them for somebody but would like to feed them.

 

[Specimen24-7]

It is interesting how they take down there prey. I use to keep Latrodectus geometricus, they can be pretty abundant in SoCal.

 

[Ranitomeya]

When I kept black widows that I'd caught, they'd pretty much eat anything that got tangled their webs. I used to feed them adult male hissing cockroaches when I culled smaller males from my colony.
Once they enough of a web for you to toss things into without them falling through, it's just a matter of providing prey.