Brachypelma albopilosum, what are you doing!

rippstop

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 27, 2010
Messages
7
My female B. albopilosum totally revamped her cage in the most unusual way, anyone have an idea why they do this? Her cage was a very neat with a half buried clay pot. She has been in it for months, and even molted, never attempting redecorate.
 

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Death999

Arachnopeon
Joined
Dec 14, 2009
Messages
12
well

she wanted to make a burrow and she has to put the sub somewhere right?:D
 

rippstop

Arachnopeon
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Mar 27, 2010
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7
Doesn't she understand all the effort I went through to make her enclosure visually appealing (to me)? How ungrateful :embarrassed:
 

malevolentrobot

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
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Jan 21, 2010
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310
that is one bulldozing T! i am very impressed. she totally puts my rosea to shame for the enclosure wrecker award. :clap:
 

Terry D

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
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Nov 21, 2009
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733
Rippstop, Many of my terrestrials, especially G pulchra tend to do this just before or at first sign of premolt- although they never make a burrow. Two of them will push nearly all the substrate from one end to the other- I'm talking a 1.75" sling and 1.5" of substrate. Nearly all of the larger ones scrape up their feeding mats in a wad and carry them around at some point within any given month. To heck with the behavioral purists! Sometimes I believe they are downright proud of their accomplishments! {D

Terry
 

Terry D

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
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Nov 21, 2009
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733
In addition, mine also do this after a large single meal- such as a large female cricket for 1.75" pulchra, etc. Chris, you must be feeding yours well?! {D

Terry
 

rippstop

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 27, 2010
Messages
7
Terry, my G. pulchra did it too. She is much smaller though, so it didn't completely wreck the cage. So what do you do? Leave it or fix it? My G. rosea loves to rearrange as well. But with him it seems more like housekeeping or light customizing. I'm still somewhat new to this (about 8 months or so), and I'm finding some of their peculiar behaviors not in the books!
 

rippstop

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 27, 2010
Messages
7
I believe you might be on to something with the large meal theory. She had 2 huge roaches last week. Since switching from crickets to B. dubia roaches they are all growing so much faster. I only have 13 T's but they seem to molt faster than I can keep track.
 

Terry D

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
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Nov 21, 2009
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733
Rippstop, I used to take the waterbowls out and empty them immediately and refill for the first few months I after I began keeping this time around. I'd never kept tiny t's before that. Now I just leave it a few days before refilling the waterbowl. After all- a well fed t is a well-hydrated t. I'd rather feed dubia to my smaller t's as well but don't have room to breed. A few began taking mm dubia at around 3" dls but not consistently. :D

Terry
 

BlackCat

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 29, 2009
Messages
195
most of my Brachys do that. My B. vagans even filled up her clay pot with substrate. She uses it to molt, then buries it and makes a new home behind it when shes done with it. lol
 

evicton

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
May 19, 2009
Messages
230
Atleast you can still see yours, I got mine around the 2 inch mark and its prolly 4 now maybe a little bigger. Mine has kept the same pattern since I got it. It keeps it burrow completly closed off until about a week before it goes into premolt it will eat that week, then it closes off its hide with a huge dirtball. It will molt, carry its molt outside the hide, leave the hide open for about 2-3 feedings then it closes it off again until the next time its close to going into premolt. Been this way for every molt lol. Because of this I call this spider Dirtball cause most of the time the cage is a waterbowl and a hide with a dirtball covering the opening.
 

Chris_Skeleton

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
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Jan 31, 2010
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1,309
In addition, mine also do this after a large single meal- such as a large female cricket for 1.75" pulchra, etc. Chris, you must be feeding yours well?! {D

Terry
I don't think so lol, but I have noticed that if I take the flower pot out of its enclosure, it wont dig around and do all that. It always tries to make a burrow through the hole in the back of the flower pot. Once it figured out it couldn't, mine made a burrow under the pot. I don't know what it is about flower pots... :?
 

Dangergirl

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
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Jul 28, 2010
Messages
109
I thought I was being "nice" :D making moss covered buried flowerpots for my T's ... they fill them up with peat, burrow underneath or beside them, and generally ignore them totally with the exception of Mercury the Boehmei.
 
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BlackCat

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
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Jul 29, 2009
Messages
195
Danger, that looks really nice. What kind of plants are you using? :drool:
 

Dangergirl

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
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Jul 28, 2010
Messages
109
BlackCat : Hi !

I glue spagnum moss onto a terracotta pot for the hidey home.

I managed to find some small Tilandsia's (air plants similar to bromeliads) at my local nursery (light grey spikey plant on the back left) which do well in the humidity and need no real care ;
And then just moss and "Peace in the Home" (Soleirolia soleirolii/Baby’s tears)

Air plants seem like a great choice for T homes since they need no soil - just misting/humidity.
 
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