Waxworms are an excellent treat for some carnivorous pets because they are pretty easy to raise, cheap to procure, and can go for long periods without food. As such, it might not be a bad idea to procure some for your tarantula, especially if you want to fatten your tarantula up or add a new feeder to their diet. However, it’s important to first confirm if tarantulas can eat waxworms since feeding them the wrong stuff can negatively affect their health. So in this article, we’ll answer your question and maybe teach you a thing or two about waxworms you might not know before.
What Are Waxworms?
Waxworms are not a distinct type of adult worm; instead, they are the larvae of wax moths. The lesser wax moth and the greater wax moth are the two primary species of wax moths that are commercially bred.
Though waxworms are voracious eaters, they can survive for extended periods without food, especially in cold environments. They are also popular feeders that are widely fed to animals and plants due to their high-fat content and ease of care. Although waxworms are not a staple food in most households, they are edible for humans.
Nutritional Composition Of Waxworms
| Name | Waxworm’s Quantity |
| Water | 58.5% |
| Protein | 14.1% |
| Fat | 24.9% |
| Ash | 0.6% |
| Fiber | 3.4% |
| Calcium | 243 milligrams |
| Phosphorous | 1950 milligrams |
Can Tarantulas Eat Waxworms?
Tarantulas can safely eat waxworms. Waxworms are relatively small, typically measuring around 2.5cm in length. Their small size and soft bodies make them a perfect fit for spiderlings and adult tarantulas. However, waxworms aren’t as nutritious as crickets or dubia roaches. As such, it’s best to feed your tarantula some crickets and dubia roaches instead of some waxworms if you have all of them available. However, feeding tarantulas various foods instead of sticking to one food is always the way to go. So ensure you still feed your tarantula some waxworms often, even if you have other feeders available.
Health Benefits Of Waxworms For Tarantulas
Waxworms can be an effective way to supplement a tarantula’s diet with fat, particularly if they are showing signs of being undernourished. This is because waxworms have a high-fat content that can help tarantulas gain a healthy weight. In addition, waxworms contain approximately 61% moisture, which can help hydrate tarantulas when they consume them.
They also offer a reasonable amount of protein, which is essential for tarantulas’ growth and overall well-being. Waxworms are also rich in calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, chloride, iron, zinc, copper, manganese, iodine, and selenium.
Health Risks Of Waxworms For Tarantulas
Waxworms cannot jump, fly, or climb most surfaces, unlike insects like roaches and crickets. This makes waxworms unsuitable feeders for arboreal tarantulas. An arboreal tarantula will spend most of their time on the cork barks and plants in their enclosure. They hardly spend time on the ground and usually find it challenging to notice prey below them. Waxworms can also burrow into the substrate, making detecting them twice as difficult for arboreal tarantulas.
Waxworms’ propensity to burrow into substrates quickly is also an issue for skittish tarantulas and tarantulas that spend most of their time hiding in an enclosure, especially if the enclosure is a large one. These types of tarantulas might not notice the waxworms in their enclosure on time, thereby giving the waxworms time to burrow into the substrate. Allowing any feeder to burrow into the substrate in your tarantula’s enclosure is a bad idea. These feeders can attack or harm your tarantula when they don’t expect it or when they are molting. Due to this reason, it’s best to place the waxworms directly in front of your tarantula so they can easily notice the worms.
What Types Of Waxworms Can Tarantulas Eat?
Waxworms may be fresh, injured, dried, black, or maybe in the pupae or adult stage of their lives when you want to feed them to your tarantula. You need to know which types of waxworm can be safely fed to your tarantula, so you don’t go ahead and feed them the wrong stuff.
Can Tarantulas Eat Dried Waxworms?
Dried waxworms are waxworms that died a while ago and have lost their moisture. You shouldn’t feed your tarantula these waxworms because they have lost their nutrients.
Can Tarantulas Eat Dead Waxworms?
Just because it’s not advisable to feed your tarantula some dead dried waxworms doesn’t mean you can’t feed a dead waxworm to your tarantula. You can kill waxworms before dropping them off in your tarantula’s enclosure. Doing this ensures they don’t burrow into the substrate and harm your tarantula later. Just be sure to kill the waxworms few minutes or, better yet, some seconds before feeding them to your tarantula. Killing them hours or days before feeding them to your tarantula will make them dry out and lose their nutritional value. Moreover, there is also the risk that the waxworms might become infected with parasites if they begin to decompose.
To keep your waxworms healthy, it’s important to regularly clean their enclosure and remove any dead worms that you find. However, it’s worth noting that tarantulas prefer to eat live prey that moves and twitches, as this movement attracts and alerts them. Due to this reason, a tarantula may not be interested in eating a dead and motionless waxworm in their enclosure.
Can Tarantulas Eat Black Waxworms?
Waxworms become darker when they die, are about to die and might occasionally become darker when they reach their pupae stage. Waxworms that are about to pupate can be safely fed to tarantulas. However, it might be difficult for the average person to tell if a waxworm is dying or about to pupate if they only observe the coloration of the waxworm. As such, it’s best not to feed your tarantula some black waxworms because of this reason.
How To Pick The Best Waxworms For Your Tarantula
Tarantulas need to eat the healthiest meals to grow healthy. So it is crucial to learn how to select the healthiest waxworms to feed your tarantula, in case any of the waxworms you want to purchase are unhealthy.
Here are a couple of things to look out for if you want to buy some waxworms for your tarantula.
The body of a healthy waxworm is smooth and creamy white. The presence of blemishes or discolorations on waxworms may be a sign of infection or poor health.
Healthy waxworms should all be of the same size in an enclosure or container. Variance in sizes may be a sign of an underlying illness in the colony or may be caused by malnutrition.
Healthy waxworms will wriggle and move around when they are touched. So waxworms that don’t move when touched may be unhealthy or ill.
Waxworms that are kept in clean enclosures do not smell. Waxworms with an offensive odor may have an underlying condition that causes the smell. These waxworms should be discarded as soon as possible.
How To Feed Waxworms To Tarantulas
Be sure to adhere to the steps below in order to learn how to feed your tarantula some waxworms correctly.
Get The Waxworms From A Reputable Source
You need to feed your tarantula only the best food. So ensure you get your waxworms from a reputable breeder, pet store, or better yet, from your waxworm colony if you are breeding waxworms yourself. Feeding your tarantula some waxworms you captured in the wild is awful. It is best to feed your tarantula only feeder waxworms that were bred in captivity because you never know what types of parasites and other nasty stuff the waxworms you caught in the wild have in their body.
Gut-load The Waxworms First
While it’s recommended to gut load the waxworms you plan to feed your tarantula in order to provide them with the maximum amount of nutrients, it’s not mandatory to do so. Waxworms eat only beeswax and honey, so it’s a little bit more challenging to gut-load them since they can’t eat fruits, veggies and fruit scraps like some other feeders. Also, since waxworms don’t constitute a significant portion of tarantulas meals and should not be fed to tarantulas regularly, you don’t have to go out of your way to gut load them since your tarantula wont be eating them regularly.
However, you can gut load waxworms if you want to by blending honey, glycerin, and organic oat baby cereal and feeding them the mixture about a day or two before feeding the waxworms to your tarantula. Feeding them this stuff will surely add some extra nutrients that will benefit your tarantula.
Feeding Your Tarantula Some Waxworms
Use a pair of hand gloves or forceps to pick the waxworms if you don’t want to touch them with your bare hands.
Place them inside your tarantula’s enclosure, preferably directly in front of your tarantula when they are out in the open. Doing this makes it easier for your tarantula to notice the waxworms before they dig into the substrate.
You can also kill the waxworms and cut them into smaller, more convenient pieces for your tarantula to eat. This step is crucial, especially if you are feeding spiderlings, since they may struggle to eat waxworms that are too large.
Clean The Enclosure
Ensure you remove all the remaining waxworms from your tarantula’s enclosure within 24 hours after dropping them off, irrespective of whether they are alive or dead. Live waxworms can attack and injure tarantulas, while dead waxworms can attract parasites and bacteria to the enclosure once they decompose.
How Often Can Tarantulas Eat Waxworms?
It’s best to be cautious when feeding waxworms to tarantulas due to their high-fat content and inferior nutritional value compared to feeder insects such as dubia roaches. As such, it’s best to feed tarantulas some waxworms once or twice a month.
It’s important to note that each tarantula species has unique feeding habits. So make sure you check our tarantula species care guides to determine the appropriate amount of food your tarantula requires
How To Store Waxworms
Waxworms are relatively easy to store and breed since you don’t need a lot of stuff to keep them and don’t need to spend a whole lot to feed them.
Waxworms can be kept in any type of container. So you don’t need to buy a specialized enclosure to house them. However, avoid using soft plastic or cardboard containers since waxworm larvae can gnaw through them. Waxworms may not look it, but they are pretty good at escaping from their enclosure. As such, ensure whatever container you use to house them is tight-fitting and escape-proof. You also don’t need a huge container to house them since approximately fifty waxworms can be accommodated in a gallon-sized (3.7 litres) container.
Additionally, you can build an artificial honeycomb, which acts as their bedding, substrate, and food, by covering the bottom of the container with enough bran, wheat germ, or uncooked oats. You need to mix all these up with some honey or corn syrup and a spoonful of glycerin if you have some available. Afterwards, allow the mixture to dry and solidify. Once hardened, break it up into clumps and use it to cover the base of the container. Your waxworms will live on and eat the bedding. Also, add some crumpled wax paper to the container for the waxworms to spin their cocoons.
You can also store waxworms in a cool place if you want to slow their growth rate. Wax worms can be easily stored in large quantities by using a sealable container and keeping them in a cool place, such as a fridge. They can last up to two months when stored in this manner. It is important to maintain a temperature range of 55°F to 60°F (12°C to 15°C) to ensure their edibility. Waxworms don’t require food once they are frozen. So storing them in a fridge can save you a bit of money since you don’t have to feed them.
Conclusion
Waxworms are healthy and nutrient-rich and can be fed to tarantulas. However, they should be fed to tarantulas more as a treat rather than as a staple meal.
