Your Spood's First Week: A Keeper's Checklist

The first week with a new jumping spider sets the tone. Here's the calm, unhurried version of what to do — and what to skip.

Day 1: Settle in, hands off

Your spood has traveled, been handled at a shop or shipped, and is now in a brand-new space. Set up the enclosure with a good anchor corner and a water misting, then… leave them alone. No handling, no rearranging. Their first job is building a hammock — their safe spot. Let them.

Days 2–4: First meals

Once your spood is out of the hammock and tracking movement, offer the first food. Right size matters more than right schedule:

• Fruit flies for slings and small juveniles.
• Houseflies or mini bottle flies for bigger juveniles and adults.

Log every offering — taken or ignored. A spood that ignores prey for a day is usually fine; two days of refusal is worth checking for premolt signs.

Days 4–7: Find the rhythm

By now you'll notice your spood's patterns: when they're active, where they perch, how they hunt. That's your care rhythm — feed during their active hours, mist in the morning so droplets last, and keep handling short and optional.

Three things new keepers worry about (that are usually fine)

1. "My spood isn't moving much today." Spoods rest a lot, especially before and after meals. Check abdomen and posture; if they look normal, patience is the right move.
2. "My spood stopped eating." First question: is the abdomen dark and shiny? That's premolt, not illness — pause feeding and keep misting.
3. "My spood built a weird little tent." That's a hammock — exactly where they should be.

The one habit worth starting now

Log care as it happens. A week of honest feeding, misting, and observation notes tells you more about a new spood's health than any single moment — and Polly's Web turns those notes into the patterns that keep them thriving.