Can Curly Hair Tarantulas Eat Silkworms?

Can a Curly Hair Tarantula Eat Silkworms?

Yes — silkworms are one of the better feeders you can offer a curly hair tarantula, and they can be a regular part of the diet rather than a treat.

Silkworms (Bombyx mori) are one of the few feeders that are genuinely good rather than merely convenient: roughly 64% protein and only 10% fat by dry weight, over 80% moisture, and a calcium-to-phosphorus ratio of about 1:1. Most feeder insects are badly inverted on that last one and need dusting to correct it. Silkworms mostly do not.

They are also soft-bodied and highly digestible, which matters for a young animal, a recovering one, or anything that struggles with hard-shelled prey.

How Many, and How Often

One silkworm every week or two, in place of a regular feeder.

Why Silkworms Suit a Curly Hair Tarantula

Silkworms are soft-bodied, which makes them an easy meal for a tarantula and leaves less debris than a hard-shelled feeder. They also will not burrow away and hide the way some feeders do.

What Else to Feed

Silkworms are excellent but they have no real exoskeleton, and a diet of nothing but soft prey leaves the gut underworked. Run them alongside discoid roaches rather than instead of them.

One Thing That Kills More Silkworms Than Anything Else

Never refrigerate them. Cold is the single most common cause of a whole cup dying at once. Silkworms are not crickets or waxworms — they want room temperature, and putting them in the fridge to "keep them fresh" is what kills them.

More detail in the complete silkworm raising and care guide.