I own a spider. Sort of. A house spider.
Whenever I catch a fly or moth or smaller spider etc around the house, I feed it to him.
Am I messing with nature? He seems to like it.
It's just waiting.
...watching and waiting.
...for the right time, then when you least expect it, you're a gonna.
I call dibs on your bikes 😀
Ha - you're his butler.
Am I messing with nature? He seems to like it.
Have you thought about how angry he's going to be when one day you stop feeding him?
Then you'll realise just what you've done when he comes looking for lunch.....
I used to do this in Swansea, mine was great, she would move so fast as soon as a fly hit the web.
I blame Roper, his spider threads were so cool and informative.
I say no problems at all! Just remember that these guys are amazing! They are tougher than you think and would totally survive without you anyhow!
I think it's good to interact with such beautiful (yet often feared ) creatures!
Is it male or female out of interest ? And what's the favourite food? I'd love a picture now I'm thinking of it! 😉
He is going to get hideously fat and lazy and will fall out of his web and probably hurt himself. And it'll be your fault 😐
We'll know who to blame when there's a spider obesity epidemic.
What's its name? (Admit it, you've given it a name!) Charlotte perhaps?
huckleberryfatt - Member
What's its name? (Admit it, you've given it a name!) Charlotte perhaps?
POSTED 41 SECONDS AGO # REPORT-POST
Totally! Need to know if its a boy or girl first though eh? Bitty if its a girl I reckon and Biff if its a boy.... That's my guess 😕
"I feed it to him" and "He seems to like it" suggests he's a boy. Whaddya reckon ?
It sounds good to me. Spiders do tend to be very good at looking after themselves but there is no harm in helping them out. You can learn a lot too
Some spiders can be over-fed though so be careful. You can tell if it is too fat by the size of its bum. If it is very fat just put it on a little diet. The problem with being too fat is it might experience problems when moulting, mainly climbing out of the old exoskeleton without getting stuck stuck or damaged. This is extreme though so don't worry too much.
I would also like to see photos if you have any.
Need to know if its a boy or girl
Does it pee standing up or sitting down?
ernie_lynch - Member
"I feed it to him" and "He seems to like it" suggests he's a boy. Whaddya reckon ?
POSTED 22 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST
That would mean you would have to rely on the OP's judgement. I'm asking/checking just in case he's taking a guess (smart arse) just intrigued! That's all!
Some spiders can be over-fed though so be careful. You can tell if it is too fat by the size of its bum. If it is very fat just put it on a little diet. The problem with being too fat is it might experience problems when moulting, mainly climbing out of the old exoskeleton without getting stuck stuck or damaged. This is extreme though so don't worry too much.
I never knew that! That's amazing! Thankyou! I've always just thought that an 'enlarged' abdomen meant eggs..... Learn something new every day. Cheers roper!
Ha, fr0sty', you're his/her* bitch now! 😆
*delete as applicable.
I've always just thought that an 'enlarged' abdomen meant eggs....
This is true most of the time. If a female is gravid they tend to go off their food anyway. Of course this does all depend on the type of spider it is.
at uni I kept a rather large house spider in a bell jar on the mantlepiece. his name was Bob J. Spidey and I fed him biscuits. only he never actually ate them. my housemate liberated him one day. I like to think he's still out there, maybe living in a biscuit jar, not eating them, and thinking of me... 😥
This thread (!) useless without pictures 🙂
Show me yours I show you mine...
I was feeding one in the garage. But it's left 🙁
I fed wasps to the spiders, had about a dozen spiders on the wall in the garden, each spider had a 'larder' of a dozen hanging wasps, all wrapped dangling from a single thread.
tbh it got a bit weird and people were glad when the wasps stopped coming.
I was feeding one in the garage. But it's left
Where do you keep your bike now?
Reminds me of the Karl Pilkington story about his mum putting a dot of Tipex on a house spider so she could keep track of him.
(Also about his dad getting boxes and boxes of knocked off Tic-Tacs and using them as kitty litter because they'd got too many to know what to do with)
I used to have an old barn as a workshop and a wren than lived in there. Every time I moved anything he'd come down and look for any flies or spiders I might have disturbed, so I'd deliberately stir things up for him so critters would scurry and he could hunt them. He'd sometimes come and perch on the workbench while I was working.
I called him Little Ronnie No-Neck.
Unbeknown to me my GF at the time had started collecting flies for Ronnie out of the office insect-o-cuter. Every time she had a jiffy bag full she'd post them and when we were chatting on the phone she'd keep asking cryptically from time to time if anything interesting turned up in the post. Nothing turned up in the post.
It turns out she'd addressed the envelopes to 'Little Ronnie No-Neck' at my address. My house was a sort of granny-flat annex of my landlords house, so we had the same address in effect. His name was Ron. Not very tall. Kept getting envelopes of flies land on his doormat. For some reason he thought his own children had been posting them and had started to get pretty angry about it as they kept denying it and the envelopes kept turning up even though he'd told them to stop it.
That went well.
😆
OP. I guess you don't share your house with a female?
The other night I was closing the bedroom door (wife already in bed) and I spied a HUGE spider sitting on top of my wife's dressing gown on the back of the door. I grabbed a paper hanky and crushed it and flushed it down the bog before the wife could see it, otherwise she wouldn't have slept in there and the dressing gown would have to be burnt.
Yess! Stw spider thread! Haven't had one for ages! Piiics
Edit: that's a great story mac 😀
For those who have asked, the one I e been feeding seems to be male, he's quite large and 'thick' but housed in another crack about 4 feet away is what I believe to be the female. She's a bit thinner, still a big spider, and a bit redder too, not as dark.
I've been feeding spiders here for a year or 2 now. Can anyone say if its the same spiders? I have no idea how long they live but they seem to be here every year...
Woodlice seem to be a favourite, along with the odd moth or fly. My favourite so far though has been dropping a woodlouse spider onto the web and watching the big spider run out and challenge it. For those that don't know, wood louse spiders are pretty aggressive. Watching them duel is pretty hectic as the wood louse chap has big fangs.
If people care enough ill upload some photos. Don't hold your breath for macro shots though!
The problem with being too fat is it might experience problems when moulting, mainly climbing out of the old exoskeleton without getting stuck stuck or damaged.
Sounds like me when I've gone up a dress size but am still valiantly trying to wear old jeans...