What and when to feed your jumping spider can be one of the more confusing things about being a keeper. Why? Because ‘what and when’ relies heavily on the size of your spider, their moult stage, and their dinner.How tubby your spider is after a meal indicates when to skip feeding. The list below is an example of a feeding schedule, but as regal jumping spiders of the same instar can be different size you will need to use their abdomen as a guide to if they need feeding of if you can wait and extra day or two.
What to Feed:
1st instar - While in the web the hatchling spiders will not feed until after they moult and disperse
2nd instar – 2 small fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) a day
3rd instar – Same as 2nd instar
4th instar – 2 large fruit fly (Drosophila hydei) a day
5th instar – 2 -3 large fruit fly (Drosophila hydei) a day or hatchling locust every 2 days
6th instar – Curly wing/house fly or hatchling locust every 2 days
7th instar – Green Bottle or small locust every 2 to 3 days, they can also have a mealworm or waxworm every 3 days but these fatty prey should be fed sparingly.
8th instar – Same as 7th instar, plus medium locust every 3 to 4 days
Sub-adult and Mature – Same as 8th, including a large locust every 4 days.
large and round - Don't offer food for a few days. Keep an eye on the abdomen until it shrink to normal, which is slightly larger than their head, and then feed again: especially if it is a prey that is bigger/longer than them.
Slightly larger than their head - A tasty fly will be great about now, or maybe a small locust.
The size of their head or thinner - A spider fresh out of moult may look like this, feel free to offer a larger fly or perhaps a chunky waxworm. Mature females stay rounder for much longer so feed them a green bottle or small locust every two days to make sure they are happily fed.
How are prey brought, kept and fed
Fruit fly – Both D.melanogaster and D.hydei can be brought as live flies, which will need feeding mushy fruit, or in a culture pot. The live flies do not last very long, but a culture pot has a fruit fly life cycle (eggs – maggots – pupea – flies) going on inside the pot which has a food paste in the bottom. This will help you have more flies for longer. You can buy live fruit flies and cultures online or stocked in some pet or reptile shops.
Larger Flies such as curly wings, house flies, green bottles and blue bottles – These are all brought as pupae, commonly called casters to be hatched out into flies to feed to your spider. Keep the casters in the warmest part of your fridge to slow down their hatching and take out a few to hatch in a separate vented container to hatch. Caster hatching can take anywhere from a few hours to a week, depending on how fresh they are. Pop a reptile jelly pot in with the live flies to keep them buzzing for longer. These can be brought online from places like eBay, some spider and mantis breeders, and angling shops occasionally carry live casters.
Locust, crickets and mealworms – These come in a range of sizes. They are sold in small, vented boxes online and in pet shops. You can always ask for sizes to pick the right size for your spider. Locust can be fed on dark, leafy greens. Crickets like vegetable peelings, and mealworms eat bug grub or insect food powder. Both crickets and mealworms can bite so it is best to tweezer feed. Meal worms pupate into hard shelled beetles and do not offer much nutrition for your spider.
Waxworms – these are the larval stage of the greater wax moth or honeycomb moth. They are full of fat and should be fed sparingly, best used after a spiders moult to replace the lost energy. They eat pollen which is not easily brought but the worms often pupate in a week of arriving, the moths can be fed to your spider but there isn’t much too them and, like the mealworm beetles, they aren’t very nutritious. You can buy waxworms online.
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