Bolus and cleanliness question

[Great Basin Ben]

How long will they gather up boluses before they ultimately clean house??? I have a female Aphonopelma sp. and the collection of dead cricket carcasses under her hide, had accumulated to the point of me actually scooping them out, and getting rid of them myself, after a couple weeks. The enclosure is BONE DRY, ( and the climate in Reno, even DRIER:razz:,)but I still had concerns about vermin build up, so decided to do a little house cleaning for her. Will she eventually do a major cleaning job, or should I expect to have to do this a couple times a month, on my own? It's almost as if she was trying to bury her garbage, rather than throwing it out... Otherwise, her appetite, demeanor, and behavior are absolutely wonderful, I am just concerned anout eventual mites.

Thanks for looking.

 

[curiousme]

How long will they gather up boluses before they ultimately clean house??? I have a female Aphonopelma sp. and the collection of dead cricket carcasses under her hide, had accumulated to the point of me actually scooping them out, and getting rid of them myself, after a couple weeks. The enclosure is BONE DRY, ( and the climate in Reno, even DRIER:razz:,)but I still had concerns about vermin build up, so decided to do a little house cleaning for her. Will she eventually do a major cleaning job, or should I expect to have to do this a couple times a month, on my own? It's almost as if she was trying to bury her garbage, rather than throwing it out... Otherwise, her appetite, demeanor, and behavior are absolutely wonderful, I am just concerned anout eventual mites.

Thanks for looking.

Since each T is different, yours may not be a cleaner. It doesn't hurt to remove them and in a dry enclosure it has very little chance of hurting if you don't either. That is as long as we are talking about boluses and not an actual entire dead cricket, because those can get smelly and infested even in a dry enclosure.

 

[Great Basin Ben]

What I did remove was in fact boluses, and not just dead crickets... This is good to know though, because it is 100% dry, so maybe next time, I'll wait a little longer to see if she cleans up first, and if not, I'll continue to help her with doing her "chores". HAHA!

 

[Anansis]

How much are you feeding her if you're scooping out many boluses after only two weeks?

 

[Great Basin Ben]

How much are you feeding her if you're scooping out many boluses after only two weeks?

Approx. (1) med sized cricket, every 2-3 days. This was the recommendation in the TKG, and although I do have larger crickets, I've only fed her the smaller, medium sized ones, as she's only at about 3 - 3 1/2 inches still..

Is this too much food? I change the water dish about every couple of days as well, and she does frequent the water. There were about 6 or 7 cricket boluses. Again, this is probably nothing to worry about, but if I can prevent mites, I want to do the very best to my ability to do so, and the flip side being that I don't want to stress the T, as well....

After I cleaned things out, she DID go to town and REALLY expand on the burrow that she's been digging. I think she's just a messy little girl who doesn't like to pick up after herself. HAHA! Is this possible???