I know it's hard to see her, but this is Peaches, my juvenile Avic avic (about an 1 and 1/4"). Recently she's not been eating (for a little over a week) and has been losing her colors. She used to be a very listless girl always wandering the enclosure, of course it has to be pre-molt, but is it usually this long for an avic to molt? she's been super lethergic for almost 3 weeks now only refusing food about a week. Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated as she was my first girl I saved from Petco. Thanks in advance everyone!
Avicularia avicularia help
- Thread starter Jlw13194
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It's an arboreal species. You need to get it in a vertical enclosure with tons of cross-ventilation, and keep the substrate moist. Keeping it in an aquarium with a screen top is not a good choice because of the orientation of the tank, the ventilation issue, and the safety risk that comes with screen tops and tarantulas getting their tarsal claws stuck in it.
Something like this:
https://jamiestarantulas.com/image/cache/catalog/00001-2-600x345.jpg
Or a cheaper tall container with lots of holes poked/drilled in the sides. In my supermarket, both pretzels and party mix come in these tall, clear jugs that would be ideal if you emptied them out and set them up for an arboreal.
Something like this:
https://jamiestarantulas.com/image/cache/catalog/00001-2-600x345.jpg
Or a cheaper tall container with lots of holes poked/drilled in the sides. In my supermarket, both pretzels and party mix come in these tall, clear jugs that would be ideal if you emptied them out and set them up for an arboreal.
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Venom1080
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it for sure takes that long, usually longer. if youre sure shes in premolt, after her molt you should rehouse her to a cage with better webbing spots. (anchor points) dont keep substrate moist, i keep all mine dry, they do fine with wet substrate but make sure vents high.
Yeah, I bought all these cork tubes and plants and she just went straight to the top (where nothing reached)... In retrospect this cage was too big am now looking at the 8x8x14 arboreal enclosures on Jamies Tarantulas. Do you think that would suffice? as far the the sub goes, i keep it as dry as possible, she does fine with it like that.
Venom1080
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that will do nicely. also, because of that, try to make sure it reaches the very top or at least very close. Avics dont usually come down for much.
Will do thanks for the solid advice as always, Venom!
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Just put it in a 16 or 32oz deli cup.
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Back on the topic of pre-molt duration (I agree with the cage advice), my Avicularia avicularia generally fast for at least a month. My elderly female set the record at 13 months!
Wow! I had no idea they could fast for such long periods of time, thank you for the information!
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To be fair, I don't think 13 months is a normal pre-molt fast for Avicularia. In fact, I am pretty sure that tarantula would have died of dehydration had I not intervened. (I noticed that she had stopped going down to her water dish, so I held it up to her level and watched her drink for a good five minutes. We then added a new high-level water dish so that she could reach it more easily, and I saw her drink from that as well.) She finally molted a week later.
I don't have a record for how long her next fast was, but it was much shorter -- 4-6 weeks tops.
She started refusing food again on 2/15/2017 and just drank a ton of water, so I am hoping she will molt again soon despite her old age.