Aphonopelma hentzi breeding!

[Randommatt]

Hey everyone my name is matt and I am new to the forum I don’t tend to use many resources like this as there is a lot of google experts and keyboard warriors. So hopefully I will find this site more pleasant and friendly.

so I paired my A. Hentzi back in early February and the female is currently making her egg sac, now if the sac is viable how long would I wait before pulling the sac? If anyone has any experience with breeding A. Hentzi I would be grateful for the advice. This is my first breeding project and finding it hard to find any info online.

thanks

 

[Liquifin]

Egg sacs are typically pulled at 28-30 days for most species.

 

[Colorado Ts]

Is this what I think it is?

So last October 2019, I bred two female Aphonopelma hentzi with a group of 3 different male spiders.



With each breeding I saw good insertion, though I only thought to take images of the final breeding sttempt.

My classroom gets pretty cool during winter, so with the first snow in November, both females closed off their burrows.



Then in early January, within 10 days of each other, the females made their way back to the surface. For a period of about 2 weeks, both females acted ravenous...then they quit eating and have refused food since early February-ish.



For months...nothing.

Then last night I noted the large female was webbing down deep in her burrow. I thought crap, she’s moulting...The breeding is lost. I almost imaged it and shared what I saw here, but I was totally bummed.

A couple hours later I checked on her because I worry when any of my spiders moult, because if anything goes wrong...that’s the time that it could go real bad. She had completely webbed a giant cocoon, with her on the inside. I thought to myself, woe, this species really goes to town when they make a moulting mat.

I checked on them again as I headed to bed....



Am I seeing this? ...is that an egg sac?



So...what is it?

 

[Arthroverts]

Is this what I think it is?

So last October 2019, I bred two female Aphonopelma hentzi with a group of 3 different male spiders.

View attachment 347707

With each breeding I saw good insertion, though I only thought to take images of the final breeding sttempt.

My classroom gets pretty cool during winter, so with the first snow in November, both females closed off their burrows.

View attachment 347708

Then in early January, within 10 days of each other, the females made their way back to the surface. For a period of about 2 weeks, both females acted ravenous...then they quit eating and have refused food since early February-ish.

View attachment 347709

For months...nothing.

Then last night I noted the large female was webbing down deep in her burrow. I thought crap, she’s moulting...The breeding is lost. I almost imaged it and shared what I saw here, but I was totally bummed.

A couple hours later I checked on her because I worry when any of my spiders moult, because if anything goes wrong...that’s the time that it could go real bad. She had completely webbed a giant cocoon, with her on the inside. I thought to myself, woe, this species really goes to town when they make a moulting mat.

I checked on them again as I headed to bed....

View attachment 347710

Am I seeing this? ...is that an egg sac?

View attachment 347711

So...what is it?

That, my friend, is a tarantula.



Sorry, couldn't resist. That certainly doesn't look like any molting mat I've seen before.

Thanks,

Arthroverts

 

[Colorado Ts]

My female, Aphonopelma hentzi, was no longer guarding her egg sac this morning...she was in the mouth of her burrow with the egg sac tucked in behind her. She hadn’t¡t eaten in months, so I dropped a medium sized B.dubia into the burrow and she immediately grabbed it.

Checked on her an hour ago and she’s back to holding her egg sac and rolling it around inside her burrow.

From the time that she laid her eggs and created the egg sac, 30 days would put the date right around the 1st of July....

 

[Colorado Ts]

Guarding Her Egg Sac

I check on her about once a day, or once every other day. She moves the egg sac around a lot...Seldom is she in the same position when I check on her.



Kind of excited to see how this goes....she really makes it hard to get a good image of the egg sac. But she seems to be a good momma. She’s taken one break for a roach, but other than that...she’s never far from her egg sac.

 

[SpiderLadyLyle]

Wow! Gorgeous hentzi! And congrats on the egg sac!

 

[Colorado Ts]

@CommanderBacon has started a thread on incubating egg sacs, the design that he is going to follow is the same design that I had planned to follow...so I'm linking his thread to this thread as a reference.

I wish him well, I will definitely be following his progress and I hope that he maintains his “Incubator Questions?” thread and fully documents his experiences...it looks to be an awesome beginning.

Incubator questions

Yoooo I searched and could not find exactly what I needed so I would like to ask some advice regarding egg sacs and incubators. Woo! Today's the day! I'm very excited. It has been 30 days, and I'm pulling my first sac (heh heh heh-!) of Avicularia avicularia eggos this evening. I did as much...

arachnoboards.com

 

[CommanderBacon]

I hope someone else replies to my incubator questions in the next 3 hours because that sac is gonna get pulled lol

 

[Colorado Ts]

I hope someone else replies to my incubator questions in the next 3 hours because that sac is gonna get pulled lol

OMG!!! Shoot video...

I'm serious about documenting your experiences with this project, it would be so amazing of a resource. Think about it....

 

[CommanderBacon]

I plan to take some video! We'll see how it goes. If the sac is bad I'm going to be incredibly sad, but I think the female would have tossed it by now if it was bad.

Fingers crossed!

 

[Colorado Ts]

Hatcher

@CommanderBacon is progressing with his hatching project. The link to his very informative thread, “Incubator Questions”, is linked above. I’ve assembled the hatcher that I will use for hatching out the egg sac from my A.hentzi female.



Here are the component parts. The base is a 32 oz deli cup, with a series of holes drilled around the circumference at the top 1/3 portion of the cup. The egg chamber is a 16 oz deli cup that has a lit of holes in the bottom. This will be lined with a coffee filter, and the eggs then placed inside and on top of the filter paper. The lid is perforated to allow air flow.



Once put into use, the bottom of the hatcher is filled with water. The water level should not touch the chamber, it should remain below the level of the chamber.

The chamber will have a coffee filter liner, with the eggs then carefully added. And then the lid.



My sling cabinet is temperature controlled. It is set at 79 degrees, high temperature is 83 degrees and the low is 77 degrees. I’ll move things around and the hatcher will go on the middle shelf. I’ll be pulling the egg sac around the 1st or 2nd of July.

 

[Magicis3]

like this as there is a lot of google experts and keyboard warriors

That's true for the most part, you can make a lil mistake or you can say **I think** and they'll bash you with comments saying ur really wrong but it's a tiny mistake from what Ive seen. But it's a part of it

 

[octanejunkie]

Following here, and @CommanderBacon thread!

 

[Colorado Ts]

Moving the Egg Sac



So...new development. The female Aphonopelma hentzi looks to be trying to pull the egg sac out of the burrow. I do not know what this means...is this good?...is this bad?...is this simple normal behaviour?

The house stays at 74 degrees, is she looking for a warmer location for the eggs?

I simply do not know....

Today is 15 June 2020, if all goes well I’ll be pulling to egg sac in about 15 days or so.

Addendum: 3 days ago she left the egg sac and hung out at the mouth of the burrow. I dropped in a B.dubia roach, as I thought she was waiting for food. Last time I did this she grabbed the roach and ate it as son as she detected its presence. Grand kiddos suddenly needed me, I did not see her eat the roach.

Could the roach be down in the burrow, and she's decided to move the egg sac because of its presence in the burrow?

 

[Smotzer]

Could the roach be down in the burrow, and she's decided to move the egg sac because of its presence in the burrow?

This would be incredibly smart move on the Tarantulas side. Hopefully that’s why she removed the sac

 

[Colorado Ts]

Aphonopelma hentzi Female #2

My 2nd female A.hentzi has become very active today. She has started digging and enlarging her little pocket burrow.



She’s been very sedate this spring, she actively fed for a few weeks back in late February, and has refused food ever since.

The work started early this morning. She’s been digging all morning...moving lots of substrate and taking short breaks now and again. This increased activity in expanding and enlarging of the burrow, is the same behavior that I noticed a week before my other A.hentzi created her egg sac.

This little girl was mated twice last fall to different males, once in late September and again in early October. Good insertions were witnessed in both mating attempts.

 

[Colorado Ts]

The egg sac looks to be deflated, much less volume. She’s stopped trying to pull it out of the burrow, and is sitting next to it, but she’s not giving it the attention that she has in the past.



This has been her behavior since last night and today.

Did I lose the sac? Not sure what to do at this point...if anything.

Ambient Temperature in the house, during this project, has been 70 degrees to 74 degrees.

 

[Colorado Ts]

So if I pull the egg sac early, will that be problematic?

 

[CommanderBacon]

So if I pull the egg sac early, will that be problematic?

I don't think it will be unless you don't have a way to ensure that the egg sac is rotated sufficiently, but I don't have any experience with it myself. I know that some breeders pull certain species' sacs because the mother has a tendency to eat it, or will pull sacs early as a matter of course and put them in a mechanical mom, but I don't know what the criteria are.

Has she abandoned the sac?