HELP: No food and possible DEET poisoning

[Spyders]

Please help my tarantula not be a casualty to hurricane Irma...

In the process of evacuating our house, I moved my T to a bedroom to be in a safer location. However, my dad unknowlingly sprayed DEET "OFF" bugspray on himself in the bathroom that is attached to the bedroom my T was in. I could smell the spray the moment I walked into the bedroom that she was in. We realized what happened within minutes and moved the T to the opposite end of the house and cut off any airway flow into the new room she was in. I cleaned out her water dish and gave her new fresh water, but we had to pack up and get to a hurricane shelter so I couldnt do anything else for her.

Is there anything I can do for her now? Do you think she will get DKS from this? I've noticed that she has done a lot more webbing than usual (she's a Mexican Red Knee so she normally barely does any at all) and has been terraforming. I haven't noticed any twitching over the last few days until today - I saw her twitch a couple legs, but it didn't look disjointed. I'm praying that this is not DKS.

I also have another problem. I normally buy her ~3 crickets each weekend to eat, but last weekend I couldn't buy her any because of the hurricane. The petstore just opened back up today, but they are completely out of crickets and worms. They have freeze dried crickets in a can. Should I see if she will eat them, or is it better that she just goes without food?

Do Ts ever survive DKS?

How quickly do they show symptoms after exposure?

Should I clean out her whole enclosure?

 

[Nightstalker47]

It's just a waiting game now, you'll know soon enough if the bug spray really affected her. I think as long as none of it got inside the enclosure, or on the spider she should be alright.

No need for freeeze dried crickets, a week or two without food is nothing to worry about. Has she exhibited the DKS symptom? It would be blatantly obvious.

 

[Spyders]

The only potential symptom I've seen is that she twitched three legs, sorta like bringing them in closer to her, earlier today. It didn't look definitively abnormal, although I've never seen her twitch before. I've had her since May this year and she sits next to my desk so I watch her a lot. The DEET spraying incident happened exactly a week ago, so I'm hoping that the fact that she's not obviously twitching that she is okay. However, I remember reading an account where someone's T showed gradually more twitching as time went on. Praying that its not that.

I think I'll clean out her enclosure just to be safe. I havent totally cleaned it out since May so its getting to be about time anyway, I just hope it wont stress her out too much. Is safe to say that cleaning it out will only help?

 

[chanda]

When was the last time she molted? Is it possible she's pre-molt now? I only ask because you say she's laying a lot more web than usual. If she is pre-molt, it would be better not to do a complete rehouse. As far as eating is concerned, she isn't going to starve to death in the next week or two while you wait for more crickets - and if she is pre-molt she won't even want to eat anyway. Just make sure she has water in her dish.

 

[Sana]

In this particular case I don't see it hurting to clean out the enclosure. In general though, you shouldn't really need to do substrate changes and the like unless there is a serious problem. As long as you clean up boluses (is that the correct plural anyone?) and the odd bit of yuck that occasionally appears she should be just fine. Unnecessary substrate changes are likely to be stressful.

 

[Spyders]

Thank you for the replies. Yeah, I'm sure shes not pre-molt because she just molted about 5 weeks ago. Shes almost 5" DLS so she wont be molting again anytime soon.

I read up on DEET and the wiki (in addition to other sources) repeatedly says that DEET is supposed to REPEL not KILL insects, however, it briefly mentioned that DEET has been shown to have neurological effects on both insects and people (for people, it was vaguely linked to seizures). Also an old thread on this site had one guy who put DEET on a towel and put it in a container with 6 crickets and he said that all of the crickets died within 15 minutes so that's pretty substantial x.x.

I'm gonna clean out her enclosure now. I hope she's not so hungry that she bites me x.x

 

[Spyders]

Well so far so good. Surprisingly, she continued her increased webbing behavior and made her new enclosure home-y that night. I finally found a petstore with live crickets and got her 4 -- she just ate the last one just now. I haven't noticed anymore twitching (*fingers crossed*). Maybe the increased webbing is just a personality (arachnality?) change, but it was also a lot hotter and more humid for 4 days since the power was out, so the increased metabolism from the heat could have made her feel up to all that webbing.

I also just want to say that I just love my Bella (Belladonna) and she is just so furry and beautiful. I hope she's feeling alright.

 

[RemyZee]

Well so far so good. Surprisingly, she continued her increased webbing behavior and made her new enclosure home-y that night. I finally found a petstore with live crickets and got her 4 -- she just ate the last one just now. I haven't noticed anymore twitching (*fingers crossed*). Maybe the increased webbing is just a personality (arachnality?) change, but it was also a lot hotter and more humid for 4 days since the power was out, so the increased metabolism from the heat could have made her feel up to all that webbing.

I also just want to say that I just love my Bella (Belladonna) and she is just so furry and beautiful. I hope she's feeling alright.

Glad she seems to be doing well.