Help, I think my Mexican Red Knee, Tiger has died

[boina]

Oh right, I never would have thought that the setup is wrong as I have had her so many years and have never seen her like this

Thanks for the info

Well, yes, the point is every animal can survive for a while in really bad conditions - just look at humans. Some hardy animals will even survive for many years. That still means that you setup is suboptimal and your tarantula was just hanging on because it's a hardy animal and not easy to kill.

Change the substrate. What you have is an accident waiting to happen. The substrate should be smooth and soft. These shifting wood chips make it difficult for the tarantula to walk on and hunting gets more difficult which may affect feeding behaviour. She also needs a soft, flat area to molt properly. It's not impossible for her to molt on these chips but molting becomes more difficult than it already is and she may injure herself on the edges of the chips since a molting tarantula is really soft and fragile. A fall onto the chips or rocks can also lead to an injury.

Further: Your tarantula is rather on the thin side. Has she molted during the last few months? If not she's undernourished. The abdomen looks somewhat lumpy - a sign of dehydration that can be caused by lack of water of lack of food, too. The heat lamp really didn't help with this.

Then: Where's the hide? A proper hide for her to walk into and maybe start a burrow? (Again: soft substrate she can burrow into!!!) Something to feel safe? Persistent stress, like from the bad substrate and lack of hide, will weaken any animal, so she's more prone to illness.

 

[Nightstalker47]

Oh right, I never would have thought that the setup is wrong as I have had her so many years and have never seen her like this

Thanks for the info

Why bother asking for advice if your going to ignore it anyway? I went over all of this stuff in the last thread, seems to fall on deaf ears.

You haven't made any of the necessary changes to your enclosure, bad sub, rock and your water dish is completely empty.

That was ten days ago man, it would have taken five minutes to fix up her setup.

 

[Mpmackenna]

I had the same species from a sling and it lived to be 19. Your specimen is a senior citizen. Unfortunately they don't just go into a death curl and die sometimes. Mine was a mess for months before it died. Sometimes at that age you wake up and something's broke but your not dead. Best you can do is follow the advice and make her comfortable and let her finish up in peace. Then order a six pack of slings, and maybe a six of something else if you are of age. My condolences.

 

[Ungoliant]

I thought this rang a bell.

http://arachnoboards.com/threads/help-i-think-my-mexican-red-knee-tiger-has-died.305791/

Moderator note: I merged the two threads, since it's the same topic about the same tarantula.