Black widows

[Malhavoc's]

well After a failed communal experiment I decided to breed my last black widow. After alot of tries and munched males I tried one last time and this morning awoke to her doing the finnishing touches to a sac and a male still alive and kicking that has been in there for awhile I was wondering how long before the eggs hatch and how many sacs should I expect?

 

[TheWidowsPeak]

from my experience or from what I remember it took around two or three weeks for the eggs to hatch and there were thre eggsacs. I think only one hatched. I had caught a big female and kept it in a ten gal. with a screen top. well she laid a few sacs, I figured they were infertile because I had her for a little over a month before she laid them. boy was I wrong. I must have had hundreds of babies in my house so i took the tank outside to the woods and opend it up and let them all go. never did see any adults in the house but Im sure there were a few

 

[Kugellager]

Like jjj said 2-3 weeks is the norm. If the sac is fertile it will start to darken a bit after 1.5-2 weeks and will 'hatch' about a week later. What I do after the egg sac begins to change color is remove it from the mother and place it in a small vial with only pinholes for ventilation...this way the babies can't get out. The first gravid female I had produced 24 egg sacs, 17-18 of which were fertile. I have managed to raise two adult females from 2 of the egg sacs I kept. I allowed the slings to cannibalize each other until 2-3 got a bit larger and were able to take small(pinhead-1/8") crickets. I have several juveniles at this stage now as well. I find it is fairly easy to bring 2-3 to adulthood per hatchout with some care.

I heep my widows in 1 quart glass mayo jars...I feel that is an ideal size. I feed the adults one large cricket about every two weeks...it keeps them fat...and if it is a gravid female...it keeps her producing egg sacs...warmth also helps.

John
];')

 

[Malhavoc's]

Well right now shes only produced one sac and Rotates it [ is this normal I knew t's did it but widows... ] and She eats everytime I happen to catch a fly or something lmao Almost daily And for some reason her the male and another smaller female get along fine [probably cuss there so stuffed] was worried the gravid female would eat the male and smaller one but she doesnt seem to mind

 

[Code Monkey]

Widows don't rotate an egg sac (it's always point up) but they do make a point of moving them about. Whether that's for environmental reasons or the equally pragmatic of keeping it near, I don't know.

I collectively reared about 4 or 5 L. variolus sacs last year and after much cannibalism, culling of males, unexpected deaths, and intermittent neglect with finding food the proper size for them wound up with one very nice virgin female that adorns my computer desk in a jar. I feed about like Kuge and she does fine.