Feeding Guide

Feeding is the heartbeat of spood care. A well-fed jumper is active, curious, and grows on schedule — and feeding time is the easiest way to bond with your spood.

What to feed

Jumping spiders eat live prey they can overpower. The right staple depends on your spood's size:

• Sling to early juvenile: flightless fruit flies (hydei or melanogaster). Offer 2–4 flies every 2–3 days.
• Juvenile to adult: houseflies, blue/green bottle flies (mini size for smaller spoods), and small roaches like red runner nymphs. Offer prey roughly the size of your spood's abdomen or slightly smaller.
• Occasional variety: small waxworms (as a treat — high fat), tiny moths, and other soft-bodied prey.

Avoid prey that fights back hard (adult crickets can injure a resting spood) and never offer wild-caught prey unless you can guarantee it is pesticide-free.

How often

• Slings: every 1–2 days, small portions.
• Juveniles: every 2–3 days.
• Adults: every 3–5 days. Adults can safely go a bit longer; a slightly round abdomen is healthy, a very plump one means it's time to ease off.

In Polly's Web, log each feeding and your reminder schedule adapts to your spood's life stage.

Reading your spood at mealtime

• Interested and alert: they'll track the prey, crouch, and stalk. That's your green light.
• Not interested: a spood that ignores prey for a day is usually fine — check for premolt signs before offering again.
• Premolt: refusal to eat plus a dark, shiny abdomen means feeding should pause. Offering food during premolt can endanger a molting spood.

Success matters more than offerings

A fly left in the enclosure overnight is not a meal — it's a roommate. Where you can, watch the catch and log whether the offer was taken (successful) or ignored. Tracking successful feedings gives you a far truer picture of your spood's health than tracking offers.

Quick tips

• Feed with the lights on and during your spood's active hours.
• Shake a couple of flies into a small vial, then release near (not on) your spood.
• Remove live prey that hasn't been caught within a few hours.
• Log every offering — successful or not — so patterns surface early.