Ive been feeding mine every second or third day. I'll take it down to once a week now

Vinzy wrote:

I think maybe they just get that huge abdomen because they have a slow growth rate and it takes a while for a "Mexican" Brachypelma to molt

I was thinking the same thing because my slower growing brachy's (b.albiceps, b.klaasi) have got some serious junk in their trunks. Both being over 10cm now they take forever to molt so I tend to give them much smaller portions come feeding time.

I'm a little undecided about this topic. The TKG basically says that any excessive feeding - is over feeding, and that most our T's are obese/overweight compared to those in the wild because we keep them well fed.

However... I was in the Northern province a few years ago and noticed a spider running across our floor in the living room that simply didn't look like your average spider. On closer inspection I found that this was a local baboon spider about 4cm in legspan. I'm still not sure which species exactly that it was, but it was already a mature male at 4cm, tibial spurs and clubbed pedipalps in full view. From what I can tell, it was Harpactira overdijki.

So, in my excitement I went searching around the next day to see if I could find the female of the species, which I eventually did. She was guarding a burrow under a rock which was full of slings, it was an awesome discovery.

Under the same rock but on a different side, there was a channel made by a small type of termite and there were thousands of them running along the channel and wondering through all the different channels under the rock and every one of the slings living in that burrow had HUGE opisthosoma's. The slings couldn't walk, they waddled coz their butts were so big. They were obviously eating very well with their own fast food supply under the same roof.

Now this is not overfeeding... so do we call it overeating instead? We are told that if we "power-feed" our T's it can affect their lifespan and health, but in a case like this, the T's are eating as much as they possibly can, nobody is feeding them.

So if it's possible in nature for T's to over eat to this degree, is it really bad for them? Or is this just again the way nature controls populations, species etc.