brachypelma smithi trouble maulting!!! plz help me!!

[xtashanx]

our beachypelma smithi is an adult and hasnt maulted for about 2 1/2 years now yesturday she went into the maulting position (on her back) but he hasnt moved an inch since and its now been 24 hrs!! should i b worried??? he legs havent flickered at all she hasnt moved in any way. shes in a tube twice the size of her its moist and warm so dont think i have done anything wrong there. she hasnt rele eaten this year so i am worried that she wont have the energy to get herself free from her old skin. when my others went into maulted and flipped on their backs they were done in the space of a couple of hours to 5 hrs top. but 24 hours seems to indicate shes in trouble and struggling. and comments on this would b much appreciated even if it is just to tell me im over reacting. xo

 

[Walk Alone]

I dont think I understand the picture fully. Is that the enclosure the spider lives in??? Was there a water dish available before the attempted molt, if that is actually what is going on? It looks dehydrated to me.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

I never had a T in this position for more then 8-10 hours....this is probably bad. you shoulda raised humidity around the enclosure at around 10 hours...

at 24 hrs it might be stuck...
hope someone else has a better opinion none of my Ts ever get stuck in molts =/

 

[xtashanx]

she was in her other enclosure with plenty of water and space but she flipped over on to a rock we had in there as she was rele unstable so i had to make the choice of moving her out in this jar so that she didnt fall down and hurt herself as if she has fallen she would of defo hurt herself. she doesnt normally climb so far up the tank. not since i have had her. the jar she is in now is very moist and i have checked temp and moisture levels they are perfect a lil higher on the moisture though as she is moulting. she hasnt eaten very much the past few years either mayb eaten 5 times in the last 2 years

 

[Shell]

Molting.....

Is that the enclosure you keep it in? Has it had regular access to water? Internal hydration is very important for a molt.

You say you keep it moist....Brachypelma don't like damp substrate, it should have been kept on dry sub with a water dish, kept full.

Edit* You answered a few of those questions, moving a molting tarantula is never a good idea.

 

[Walk Alone]

Since the substrate is moist, I would let it be and try to disturb the area as little as possible now. She may need some extra time since she was disturbed early on. However, I am still not convinced that it is a molting spider. My monitor isn't the best by any means, so I hope I am wrong. Fingers crossed for your smithi.

 

[jayefbe]

From the abdomen, it looks as the carapace has popped and the tarantula has started molting. Or, the tarantula was severely dehydrated. Without knowing what it's actual enclosure is like, it's tough to tell what may have gone wrong. However, to reiterate what Shell said, moving a molting tarantula is a bad idea. If there were no husbandry issues, that's what I would suspect. Another option is that she was just old, and succumbed to natural causes rather than began molting. What position was she in before you moved her?

 

[xtashanx]

i know ur not suppose to move a moulting t im not a complete moron lol but if i didnt she defo wouldnt have survived while in such a fragile state. any way i had to move her i had no other option other wise i wouldnt have but i couldnt risk losing her while moulting to a fall!!! so i moved her somewhere safer. plz dont make me feel mad so a decision i had to make quickly. if she made the slightest movement she would have fallen. yes she had plenty on water and her normal home is not ott on the moisture its perfect for her species

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

if you moved your B smithi while in molt in its other cage... out of its other cage.. odds are you killed it... B smithi just need dry substrate .. BonE dry & a water bowl
sorry.. bad stuff happens.. when ts arent properly cared for

raising humidity works for different Genus;es not B smithi

 

[gmrpnk21]

If a tarantula starts MOLTING (not maulting) in a certain spot, chances are it knew what it was doing regardless of what you thought was right. I hate to say it, but she is probably gone.

 

[jayefbe]

i know ur not suppose to move a moulting t im not a complete moron lol but if i didnt she defo wouldnt have survived while in such a fragile state. any way i had to move her i had no other option other wise i wouldnt have but i couldnt risk losing her while moulting to a fall!!! so i moved her somewhere safer. plz dont make me feel mad so a decision i had to make quickly. if she made the slightest movement she would have fallen. yes she had plenty on water and her normal home is not ott on the moisture its perfect for her species

How big a fall are we talking? I find it a little odd that she would choose such a precarious position to molt. Unless it was a good few inches off the ground with a straight fall, I personally wouldn't have moved it. Maybe there was something about the substrate that made it want to avoid molting on it? I still also think she might not have even been molting could be a possibility, old age? Although, they usually don't end up on their back.

if you moved your B smithi while in molt in its other cage... out of its other cage.. odds are you killed it... B smithi just need dry substrate .. BonE dry & a water bowl
sorry.. bad stuff happens.. when ts arent properly cared for

raising humidity works for different Genus;es not B smithi

So, in your "expert" opinion, it was the moving of the tarantula that caused its demise? Or was it the damp substrate (that we don't even know it had)? And where have you heard that raising the humidity doesn't help a Brachypelma molt? Where do you get your information?

More importantly, where do YOU get off being judgmental about someone else's tarantula husbandry?!

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

moving a T ..from its enclosure to " another enclosure is a very bad idea.... it stresses the spider out & probably puts it in panic mode.. no sceintific proof of this though.. nothing to back it up

I raise humidity of all my Ts when in pre -molt.. except g rosea. it just needs a full water dish.

 

[1hughjazzspider]

sorry.. bad stuff happens.. when ts arent properly cared for

His T wasn't necessarily improperly cared for. If you read his other posts he said he had the sub dry just like a smithi would like it. Only thing wrong he did was make a stupid mistake by moving it while it was molting. He was looking out for the best interest of his T and unfortunately made a wrong choice because it probably now has passed on. Gmrpnk21's right, regardless of where the T is preparing to molt, it likely knows what it's doing.

And the plural term for genus is genera.

---------- Post added 11-23-2011 at 11:36 AM ----------

More importantly, where do YOU get off being judgmental about someone else's tarantula husbandry?!

Dude + 1,000,000 on that.

 

[xtashanx]

ty jayefbe. the sub is fine the tank is fine and the water was there. i have had her for 4 years and shes about 6-7 years of age now so i think mayb the CARE she recieves from me is just fine for her otherwise she wouldnt b here now would she??? the fall is from one large rock and she would have landed on other rocks and a wood log with some dents in which in my opinion would have damaged/ killed my freshly moulted t full stop. i did what most of u on here would have done i sure as hell love my t and as her owner will do anything for her i moved her in such a fragile state and done something that yes could have stresed her out n killed her to make her safer. i dont believe what i did was wrong. so back to my orinigal question is moulting for over 24 hours normal for such a large and old t? she hasnt rele moved though since this post she does seem to have arched a lil.

 

[1hughjazzspider]

so back to my orinigal question is moulting for over 24 hours normal for such a large and old t? she hasnt rele moved though since this post she does seem to have arched a lil.

I'd say it's a long time since none of my T's molts have lasted more than just a few hours, but stranger things have happened I'm sure. Just leave it be for awhile and if it starts to smell you'll know it's gone.

 

[goodoldneon]

As a fairly new T owner I'm curious, would a molting T be restricted from slipping into a death curl? Also, assuming hydration is an issue, would lightly misting the T be of any help (keeping in mind it may add further stress)?

 

[Walk Alone]

As a fairly new T owner I'm curious, would a molting T be restricted from slipping into a death curl? Also, assuming hydration is an issue, would lightly misting the T be of any help (keeping in mind it may add further stress)?

You never want to mist a molting tarantula.

Assuming it is molting, increased humidity and moisture can help. The damp substrate should assist in that area. Moving a spider into the bathroom and running a shower can also help. But being that it has already been disturbed, I could not recommnend moving it again.

If it is dehydrated and not molting, ICU can help. But the container it is already in is similar enough to an ICU situation (damp sub instead of damp paper towel). It is not worth moving in its fragile state.

Waiting it out to see what happens is likely the only option.

 

[Shell]

Dude + 1,000,000 on that.

Yeah for me as well.....

To the OP, I really wasn't trying to make you feel like an idiot. I only asked about the substrate, enclosure, waterdish etc because I was trying to determine the problem based on the picture you provided. You just so happened to be beat me to those answers right before I posted.

The only thing I can say is that maybe your enclosure shouldn't have all that stuff in it to begin with if you're worried about your spider getting injured.....(I'm talking the rocks you mentioned.) Moving a molting T, unfortunately, is not the right decision, and if you didn't have all the rocks in there to begin with, you wouldn't have been forced to make that choice. Not attacking you with that statement btw, it was just a thought.

Nothing more to do at this point, then wait and see, and hope for the best.

 

[1hughjazzspider]

Yeah for me as well.....

To the OP, I really wasn't trying to make you feel like an idiot.

And I was in no way saying I thought you were stupid when I said you made a stupid mistake. It was just my way of saying you did something you perhaps wished you hadn't. I know you were just doing what you thought was best for your T at the time and I have nothing but respect for you for that. Hopefully she'll pull thru, keep us posted.

 

[Hornets inverts]

I dont know much at all about the husbandry conditions of exotic t's so cant help you out. One thing i will add is i have always been told never to throw a t or scorp out untill it starts smelling or goes mouldy. Miracles can happen with inverts that may have appeared screwed. Good luck.