Feeding & Water Needs of a Common Striped Scorpion

A scorpion will eat just about anything that is small enough for it to capture and devour, as long as it is alive. You can feed your scorpion almost any insect you can capture or purchase, but common foods include crickets, fruit flies, meal worms, cockroaches, wax worms and spiders. If you catch live food instead of purchasing it, make sure your hunting grounds have not been treated with pesticides or other chemicals that could harm your scorpion.

An average sized adult striped scorpion will eat one or two crickets per week, while a young scorpion will eat three or four pinhead crickets each week. Feed your scorpion on a regular schedule, such as one cricket every three days, and observe him to see whether or not he is consuming all of the food you offer. If any remains the next morning, reduce the number of feedings. Feed your scorpion at dusk or at night to mimic his natural hunting time. Don't feed your scorpion when he's shedding his exoskeleton. He is unlikely to eat the food, and some insects offered as food could harm him while he is in this vulnerable state.

A scorpion captures his food by holding it with his large front pincers and injecting venom with his tail. He then spits a bile-like substance on to the food and waits for it to begin to dissolve. Once it's liquified, he'll eat it. The reason he does this is because his mouth is too small to consume most food directly. This process means that a scorpion eats slowly and may hang on to his food for a while. If you feed him in the evening, however, and there is still food left in the morning or he has abandoned the insect's body, it should be removed. Wasted food can harbor bacteria that is harmful to your scorpion.

Provide your scorpion with a small shallow dish of water at all times. Make sure the edges of the dish are low enough that he can easily crawl in and out of it. Clean the bowl regularly and change the water each day. About once a week, mist your scorpion's cage with fresh water to help keep the humidity at the ideal level, which is between 60 and 80 percent.