Feeding Basics 101: Prey, Portions, and Reading Your Spood

Feeding is where new keepers overthink and experienced keepers under-fuss. Here's the working knowledge that covers 95% of situations.

Buy the right prey

The shortlist, by spood size:

• Slings and small juveniles: flightless fruit flies (melanogaster for tiny slings, hydei for bigger ones).
• Juveniles: more hydei flies, green bottle flies (mini), red runner roach nymphs.
• Adults: houseflies, blue/green bottle flies, small roaches.

The rule of thumb: prey around the size of your spood's abdomen or smaller. Crickets are the classic beginner mistake — they fight back, bite, and can injure a spood between molts.

Offer, watch, log

There's a difference between an offering and a meal. Shake a fly in, watch the pounce, and log what happened. Three data points beat one:

• Taken: appetite is good, schedule is right.
• Ignored once: normal — reoffer tomorrow.
• Ignored repeatedly: check for premolt (dark, glossy abdomen) before assuming anything is wrong.

In Polly's Web, feeding logs track offered vs. successful separately — the success rate is the signal worth watching.

How often — the honest schedule

• Slings: every 1–2 days.
• Juveniles: every 2–3 days.
• Adults: every 3–5 days.

But the schedule serves the abdomen, not the other way around. Gently rounded = healthy. Very plump = cut back. Wrinkled = increase misting and check in.

Feeding-time mistakes to avoid

• Leaving prey in overnight. A loose fly is stress, not dinner.
• Feeding during premolt. If they're refusing food and look dark/glossy, wait. Prey near a molting spood can be genuinely dangerous.
• Handling right after the catch. Let them eat in peace.
• Free-handing flies into the enclosure. Shake them into a vial first — you'll control the count and the release.

The habit that ties it together

Feed at consistent times, in the same way, and log it. After a few weeks you'll have something no guide can give you: your spood's personal baseline — and every deviation from it becomes early information instead of a mystery.