goonius
Arachnoknight
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2020
- Messages
- 199
I’m not a new keeper, just not on here much anymore. I have a T alibopilosus Nicaraguan, a beautiful healthy girl probably at least 10 years old. Got her from Craigslist, a local guy who didn’t know how to care for her about 4-5 years ago. We felt sorry for her, and decided to rescue but I quite love her. She’s one of my favorites.
Anyway, she’s molted once in my care, and spends most of her time deep underground in her tunnels. We were excited to see her out and about last night until she turned around and you could see the white crust around her spinnerets and a whitish plug in her anus.
It’s been a few months since she has taken food. I assume she drinks — we moisten her deep burrow, and she always has a full water dish.
Once we saw the issue, we caught her and put her in a smaller container and this morning immobilized her with wet paper towels and moistened and cleaned her anus. Man, that stuff is tenacious.10 minutes or so of moistening/cleaning (until she started trying to back up) yielded some improvement, but the white plug is still there. We’ll have to go in for a second round perhaps this evening.
Every scenario I read about with impaction, the tarantula ends up dead. I see where Tom Moran managed to clear a blockage and the tarantula expelled a large amount of feces — and still died anyway. Tarantula cave has a great video on trying to clear impaction from a Poeci — she also died eventually. I suspect we have caught this early-ish since she is showing no signs of being slowed down by it, but is that really worth anything? Who knows.
I wonder if we are just torturing this poor girl and her fate is already sealed. Just curious if anyone has had spider survive after clearing impaction?
I’ll include a (poor quality) picture since I know people will probably ask. This is from before the first cleaning, when we first spotted the issue.
I’m not looking for generic advice, but anecdotes from personal experiences, particularly successes, are very welcome.
Anyway, she’s molted once in my care, and spends most of her time deep underground in her tunnels. We were excited to see her out and about last night until she turned around and you could see the white crust around her spinnerets and a whitish plug in her anus.
It’s been a few months since she has taken food. I assume she drinks — we moisten her deep burrow, and she always has a full water dish.
Once we saw the issue, we caught her and put her in a smaller container and this morning immobilized her with wet paper towels and moistened and cleaned her anus. Man, that stuff is tenacious.10 minutes or so of moistening/cleaning (until she started trying to back up) yielded some improvement, but the white plug is still there. We’ll have to go in for a second round perhaps this evening.
Every scenario I read about with impaction, the tarantula ends up dead. I see where Tom Moran managed to clear a blockage and the tarantula expelled a large amount of feces — and still died anyway. Tarantula cave has a great video on trying to clear impaction from a Poeci — she also died eventually. I suspect we have caught this early-ish since she is showing no signs of being slowed down by it, but is that really worth anything? Who knows.
I wonder if we are just torturing this poor girl and her fate is already sealed. Just curious if anyone has had spider survive after clearing impaction?
I’ll include a (poor quality) picture since I know people will probably ask. This is from before the first cleaning, when we first spotted the issue.
I’m not looking for generic advice, but anecdotes from personal experiences, particularly successes, are very welcome.
