To properly care for your tarantula, it’s crucial to acquire comprehensive knowledge, which includes fundamental aspects such as their dietary requirements and enclosure maintenance, as well as more nuanced aspects like their excretory habits. By grasping the intricacies of tarantula biology, you can enhance your ability to care for these creatures effectively. In this article, we’ll delve into the topic of tarantula poop and how learning about it can aid you in providing optimal care for your little friend.
Do Tarantulas Poop?
Yes, tarantulas poop. However, the amount of poop they discharge is considerably smaller in comparison to other animals like cats and dogs. So you might not notice it if you aren’t looking closely.
What Is Tarantula Poop Called?
The name of tarantulas’ poop is frass. The name isn’t used for only tarantula poop, though. Frass is actually a generalized term used to refer to the natural biologic waste from insects, which forms as a byproduct of their metabolic activities. So cockroaches, beetles, and flies poop are all called frass too.
How Do Tarantulas Poop?
It’s essential to understand how tarantulas eat in order to understand how they poop. Tarantulas do not chew and swallow food like some other animals do. Instead, they release a venom that kills their prey and helps dissolve the prey’s flesh. The flesh is dissolved due to the enzymes the tarantula injects into the prey. The mushy bits of the prey is then sucked by the tarantula, liquified in the stomach, broken further down, and passed into the tarantula’s bloodstream to be utilized by the body. The leftover food that is not used by the tarantula’s body is then passed out as uric acid. Which, for all intents and purposes, can be regarded as poop.
What Is The Color And Texture Of Tarantula Poop?
Tarantulas’ poop is white and looks a lot like bird poop, even though it is generally more solid than most birds’ poop. However, most new tarantula owners often believe that their tarantula’s poop is black or dark brown. This confusion stems from the fact that the white poop can easily get mixed up with the substrate or some other substance in the enclosure, making it change color. Differentiating actual tarantula poop from something else is also sometimes tricky since the poop tends to smear all over the place and often doesn’t harden.
Where Do Tarantulas Poop?
Tarantulas prefer having designated areas to pass their waste. You’ll often notice them picking particular spots in their enclosure that they’ll go to whenever they want to poop. Some tarantulas prefer pooping on the corner of their enclosure, while others may do their business directly on the glass or their water dish.
The tendency for tarantulas to pick designated spots to poop is one of their unique characteristics, which makes caring for them a bit easier. This attribute is very praiseworthy, especially when you compare them to insects like cockroaches which tend to pass their waste all over the place. However, some tarantulas tend to poop in their water bowl, which is unhygienic, to say the least. This is especially problematic since their poop partially dissolves in the water, making it dirty.
Some tarantulas also prefer to poop on the walls of their enclosure instead of their water bowl. While this behavior makes it easier to spot the poop on the walls, it can also make cleaning a bit more challenging, as the poop tends to smear and adhere to the wall surface.
Does Tarantula Poop Smell?
Tarantulas are not smelly animals, so any awful smell that emanates from their enclosure is usually due to the substrate or some other stuff that might have gotten rotten. Their poop also doesn’t have a distinct smell but can smell a bit awful when it dries up.
It’s best to clean your tarantula’s enclosure often and remove any poop you find. It’s essential to also deep clean a tarantula’s enclosure occasionally to ensure it is always pristine. Though tarantulas tend to poop in designated locations, they might sometimes skip a beat and poop somewhere you might not easily notice. So deep cleaning their enclosure is sometimes the only way to clean everything thoroughly.
How Often Do Tarantulas Poop?
Tarantulas tend to poop within 24 to 36 hours after eating. Although the timeframe may occasionally be slightly shorter or longer.
How Much Do Tarantulas Poop?
The amount of poop produced by tarantulas is influenced by several factors.
How much you feed them and how frequently they eat will affect how much they poop. The amount of poop that a tarantula produces after consuming a larger prey, such as a mouse, is usually a bit more than the amount produced after consuming a smaller prey, such as a dubia roach.
In extension to the above factor, a tarantula’s size will also usually determine the amount of poop it will pass out. Not necessarily because they produce more waste but because they tend to consume larger and more amount of prey than smaller tarantulas.
The age of the tarantulas is also a factor as regards how much tarantulas poop. It has been observed that older tarantulas poop more often than younger ones.
Is Tarantula Poop Disease Ridden?
Animal poop is typically seen as an awful disease-ridden substance that should not be touched. Nevertheless, tarantula poop is relatively harmless and is free of diseases and parasites. This makes cleaning it easier since there’s no need to get scared that you’ll be infected with something.
How To Clean Tarantula Poop?
One thing you should have in mind when cleaning your tarantula’s poop is that it’s best to wipe out the poop and leave everything in the enclosure just the way they were. Tarantulas take a lot of time and effort to build their homes inside their enclosure. So taking out a bunch of stuff and rearranging them just because you want to clean their poop is a bad idea.
How you clean your tarantula’s poop will depend on which part of the enclosure your tarantula poops at. If your tarantula poops on its water bowl, then all you have to do is throw away the water, clean up the water bowl, refill it, and place it back inside the enclosure.
You might need a window scraper if your tarantula poops on the walls of the enclosure. Running the window scraper on the enclosure’s surface can easily dislodge the poop if it has already solidified. Tarantula poop is also water-soluble. So you can easily wipe it off with a wet piece of cloth.
You don’t need a window scraper or wet piece of cloth to remove the poop if your tarantula poops on the substrate. Just scoop out the poop from the substrate and discard it.
Don’t forget to wash your hands once you’re done.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Tarantulas, just like other animals, tend to poop more often than you think. This is entirely normal and is no cause for alarm. Tarantula poop is harmless and does not require deep cleaning. So ensure you don’t change your tarantula substrate just because you noticed a smudge of poop in there.
