Article: The mainstay of the tarantula diet is crickets, which you can purchase from a good pet store or online. You can also feed them mealworms, beetles, locusts, cockroaches, and earthworms. Whatever live prey you choose, it should be less than half the size of the tarantula you are feeding. Although live food is preferable, you can also serve dead food such as thawed baby mice or 1 centimeter (1/2'') pieces of raw beef. Don't serve them prey items that are larger than the size of their abdomens. Tarantulas are opportunists, so they may be able to subdue small lizards, snakes, and mice. Roaches have to be ordered online and a colony started to ensure a constant supply. The number of live prey you serve your tarantula will depend on the size of the prey. For instance, you could offer your tarantula a meal of two small insects or one larger insect, depending on your preference and the availability of feed. For younger tarantulas, you should just give them one prey at a time. However, adult tarantulas can handle multiple prey at once, which they will attack one at a time and then ball up into a meal of food and silk called a bolus. Since they are nocturnal animals, you'll want to feed them at night. You should feed your tarantula a diet that is suited to their age. Very young tarantulas or "slings" require food every two or three days. Once the tarantula becomes a juvenile or reaches between 1.5 and 2 inches (25.4 and 76.2 millimeters), you can feed them one live insect, once or twice per week. Once they reach adulthood, tarantulas don't need the same number of meals as juveniles. However, since the size and number of meals varies a lot depending on the species, you should ask the pet store for species-specific feeding information. Feed an adult Grammostola porteri or rosea tarantula four to five crickets per month. Feed an adult Theraphosa or Pamphobeteus tarantula four or five crickets twice per week. Feed tropical tarantulas larger and more frequent meals, including Therophosa, Phormictopus, Pamphobeteus, Acanthoscurria, and Nhandu tarantulas. Feed an adult Pamphobeteus five crickets and one cockroach per week. If your tarantula is lying on its back and looks comatose, it is probably molting. During the molting process, your tarantula regenerates internal organs and sheds its skin. At this time, you shouldn't give it any live prey, which could easily injure your tarantula. Five days after molting, it is safe to feed them again. Don't confuse molting with death. A dead tarantula will not lie on its back. If your tarantula is very sick or dying, it will do a death curl. It will curl its legs underneath itself in an awkward position. Take out any remaining live prey after your tarantula has finished eating, since these prey could bother your tarantula when it is resting. You'll also want to remove any food waste, such as discarded bits of crickets in their water bowl. You can use a recycled plastic container, a plastic plant container or a water dish from a pet store. Put the container on the bottom of the terrarium, and add a rock so that live prey can escape. Otherwise, the crickets you feed your tarantula could drown and foul the water. If you are adding a water dish for a tree-dwelling tarantula, you should place it about two thirds of the way up the side of the tank so that it is convenient for your tarantula. Put it close to the door of the terrarium, so you can fill it up. You can glue it to the side of the tank with an aquarium silicone sealant. You can give your tarantula bottled water or water that has been filtered to remove chlorine. {"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/f\/f2\/Care-for-a-Tarantula-Step-16.jpg\/v4-460px-Care-for-a-Tarantula-Step-16.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/f\/f2\/Care-for-a-Tarantula-Step-16.jpg\/aid28059-v4-728px-Care-for-a-Tarantula-Step-16.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":345,"bigWidth":"728","bigHeight":"546","licensing":"<div class="mw-parser-output"><p>License: <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/3.0\/">Creative Commons<\/a><br>
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What is a summary of what this article is about?
Serve live prey less than half the size of the tarantula. Serve an appropriate number of prey per meal. Feed young tarantulas more frequently. Feed adult tarantulas a diet that is suited to their species. Don't feed a tarantula when it is molting. Remove food waste after your tarantula has eaten. Provide fresh, chlorine-free water in a water dish.