- Joined
- Oct 16, 2004
- Messages
- 417
I noticed earlier that my MM B vagans was particularly crazy tonight all over his enclosure, struggling extra hard against the lid and even knocking himself over backwards a few times in his frenzy.
At one point I looked in at him and noticed that his butt (which is quite bald from hair kicking) looked all wet, but that it wasn't beading off of him the way water normally seems to, it looked too viscous to be water. I couldn't see any kind of injury though I did notice that his spinnerets looked strangely clamped against his body. I decided to keep an eye on him for a while and he was still acting really frenzied but as I checked over time the liquid seemed to start drying so I thought maybe it was water after all.
I left him truly alone for a bit and came back to see that only his left side was still wet, but now his spinnerets were away from his body and there's liquid sort of puddled in the arc between his body and his spinnerets. At THIS point I finally can see that half of his left spinneret is just missing (even though I have pics from when I first noticed the liquid and he clearly has both intact (I will post one below).
I honestly have no idea how on earth he could have done this as there is NOTHING sharp, high up, or pinchy in his tank, I set it up specifically the way it is because I know he's a climber. The only conceivable way is if he somehow caught it UNDER the edge of the tank lid, which really doesn't make a lot of sense at all. I tried to get some flour on it and he promptly fell backward butt first right into the substrate (still in a complete frenzy) and it became clear that I had to ICU him.
So for the next I don't even know how long (it seriously felt like an eternity) he fought against me tooth and nail, every time I thought I almost had him safely cupped he wilded out, dove out from under the cup and I had to start all over again. He was fighting me so hard I actually got nauseous at the stress he was going through (some ICU hunh?).
Now he's ICUd and calmed and I almost feel worse as I wonder if all the stress from the transfer just beat the fight out of him. He's been a MM since May and hasn't put down any web (much less sperm web) in months so I didn't expect to have much more with him anyway, but this is NOT the way I was expecting him to go.
It seems he's finally moved a little bit and is back to trying to escape, so maybe all is not lost, but seriously this just completely sucks.
Sorry for the time sink to anyone who actually made it all the way through that, but I had to vent somewhere where I could go further in depth then "one of my pets is hurt and I feel horrible".
At one point I looked in at him and noticed that his butt (which is quite bald from hair kicking) looked all wet, but that it wasn't beading off of him the way water normally seems to, it looked too viscous to be water. I couldn't see any kind of injury though I did notice that his spinnerets looked strangely clamped against his body. I decided to keep an eye on him for a while and he was still acting really frenzied but as I checked over time the liquid seemed to start drying so I thought maybe it was water after all.
I left him truly alone for a bit and came back to see that only his left side was still wet, but now his spinnerets were away from his body and there's liquid sort of puddled in the arc between his body and his spinnerets. At THIS point I finally can see that half of his left spinneret is just missing (even though I have pics from when I first noticed the liquid and he clearly has both intact (I will post one below).
I honestly have no idea how on earth he could have done this as there is NOTHING sharp, high up, or pinchy in his tank, I set it up specifically the way it is because I know he's a climber. The only conceivable way is if he somehow caught it UNDER the edge of the tank lid, which really doesn't make a lot of sense at all. I tried to get some flour on it and he promptly fell backward butt first right into the substrate (still in a complete frenzy) and it became clear that I had to ICU him.
So for the next I don't even know how long (it seriously felt like an eternity) he fought against me tooth and nail, every time I thought I almost had him safely cupped he wilded out, dove out from under the cup and I had to start all over again. He was fighting me so hard I actually got nauseous at the stress he was going through (some ICU hunh?).
Now he's ICUd and calmed and I almost feel worse as I wonder if all the stress from the transfer just beat the fight out of him. He's been a MM since May and hasn't put down any web (much less sperm web) in months so I didn't expect to have much more with him anyway, but this is NOT the way I was expecting him to go.
It seems he's finally moved a little bit and is back to trying to escape, so maybe all is not lost, but seriously this just completely sucks.
Sorry for the time sink to anyone who actually made it all the way through that, but I had to vent somewhere where I could go further in depth then "one of my pets is hurt and I feel horrible".
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