Tried both dried mealworms and live ones for my freakishly huge garden spiders - one was way better

So I've been trying to attract those big garden spiders to my backyard in Austin because they eat all the pests. For about a month I was leaving out dried mealworms near my mutant pumpkin patch thinking they'd show up. They barely touched them even after I tried rehydrating some. Switched to live mealworms from the pet store last week and it's a whole different story. I put about 20 in a little dish near my twisted sunflower sculpture and within two days I had four huge yellow garden spiders hanging around. The movement really makes the difference I guess. The live ones cost me like $4 for a cup versus $8 for a bag of dried ones so it's cheaper too. Has anyone else tried feeding their garden predators something weird like crickets or is that too much?

2 comments

2 Comments

anna_carter5320d ago

The live ones always work better because spiders are ambush hunters that need movement to trigger their strike drive. Have you noticed if the yellow garden spiders are actually eating the mealworms or just scaring them off? I had a similar setup last summer and mine would sometimes just paralyze like ten crickets and leave them dangling without eating right away. That might mean you're overfeeding them or the mealworms are too small to bother with. Also, watch out for the spiderlings if the females lay egg sacs nearby - they'll swarm everything in sight when they hatch.

miles79820d ago

Holy crap, paralyzing ten crickets and just leaving them dangling? That's wild.