- Joined
- Apr 11, 2007
- Messages
- 5,438
Ok, so i've been kind of putting off the rehousing of my little approx 4" C. huahini (still unsexed) for a few weeks now. I had the 1 gal pretzel jar setup ready on wednesday and finally made time on Saturday morning to do the move. As is sometimes the case, I decided to document the steps for posting later. I will use "she" for the purposes of this post although like I said, I dunno.
Ok, getting ready:
I have the spider in the old enclosure:
New enclosure ready to go:
Some of the assorted tools at the ready:
Ok, let's do it.
I pop the lid off (forget to take a pic) and remove the top layer of silk:
I dig and dig with my 12" tongs. Once I get through the bulk of the layered silk I just start slowly, carefully dumping out dirt until the spider comes out with it. (this pic was taken AFTER the ensuing fiasco, notice the spider not in the pic)
Out she (he?) comes. Once i've pushed the dirt away she walks lazily over to the side of my big tub I use for rehousing and stops there. I've never gotten a good pic of this T so I decided to go for it and reach for my camera. I power the camera up and look at the viewfinder just in time to see her quickly scrabbling over the edge of the tub with freedom in sight. From this point on there are no more action shots of the move...
What ensues starts out as a gentle prodding towards a cup and escalates to a running, jumping heart attack of a "run for the border" escape attempt. It was only a 3 or 4 minute ordeal but that was a loooooong 3-4 minutes. I chased her all over that bathroom before finally getting a cup over her.
So the first mistake I made was stopping to take a picture when I did not have the T completely under control and did not have a second pair of hands for backup.
The second mistake was using a piece of rag matboard to slide under the cup once i'd recaptured the T. Ragboard is basically cardboard with a percentage of cotton fiber woven in. It's very soft on one side and apparently a T can really dig its claws into it.
She wouldn't let go of the board. Several attempts to push her off with a brush resulted in her running anywhere except where I wanted her to. Up my arm, around the other side of the cup, down the outside of her new jar, you get the idea. Once she was sufficiently spooked (3rd escape/re-cup cycle) she wouldn't let go of the board no matter what I did. This girl was freaked.
I eventually got tired of all this noise and just did this.
That's her clinging to the underside of the board inside her new enclosure. The board is weighted with a rock on top.
She stayed there for about 8 hours without budging. It wasn't a situation I felt good leaving as is. The drop was far enough that I think she may never have climbed down of her own volition and instead stayed there for days and days. That's a long time to hold the lid on with a rock and i can't imagine it was good for the T either.
So I moved it to this, that's some old webbing in there to try and make her more comfortable.
The webbing seemed to help. This was the next morning:
So I dumped her into the new enclosure. By this morning (monday) I was observing normal spidery behavior.
I remember just recently advising a newer hobbyist that rehousing often does not go as planned. Funny how within only a few days I received a object lesson in how true this can be.
So, lessons learned:
1: When rehousing speed demons with no assistance be VERY CAREFUL when/if you decide to take pics. Taking your eyes off an unrestrained T for even a second can make the situation go south in a hurry.
2: Use something smooth for sliding under the cup. Personally I'll be using scrap cuts of sheet acrylic instead of scraps of ragboard from now on. They're great anyway because it makes it easier to take ventral photos.
3: As soon as you think you know a thing or two about dealing with feisty, speedy T's you may just be reminded of just how out of control things can get.
But yaknow what else I forgot to do? Get a decent ventral sexing pic. :wall:
It looks like a molt isn't far off so hopefully i'll get an intact exuvia soon, before he/she/it digs in too much.
Ok, getting ready:
I have the spider in the old enclosure:
New enclosure ready to go:
Some of the assorted tools at the ready:
Ok, let's do it.
I pop the lid off (forget to take a pic) and remove the top layer of silk:
I dig and dig with my 12" tongs. Once I get through the bulk of the layered silk I just start slowly, carefully dumping out dirt until the spider comes out with it. (this pic was taken AFTER the ensuing fiasco, notice the spider not in the pic)
Out she (he?) comes. Once i've pushed the dirt away she walks lazily over to the side of my big tub I use for rehousing and stops there. I've never gotten a good pic of this T so I decided to go for it and reach for my camera. I power the camera up and look at the viewfinder just in time to see her quickly scrabbling over the edge of the tub with freedom in sight. From this point on there are no more action shots of the move...
What ensues starts out as a gentle prodding towards a cup and escalates to a running, jumping heart attack of a "run for the border" escape attempt. It was only a 3 or 4 minute ordeal but that was a loooooong 3-4 minutes. I chased her all over that bathroom before finally getting a cup over her.
So the first mistake I made was stopping to take a picture when I did not have the T completely under control and did not have a second pair of hands for backup.
The second mistake was using a piece of rag matboard to slide under the cup once i'd recaptured the T. Ragboard is basically cardboard with a percentage of cotton fiber woven in. It's very soft on one side and apparently a T can really dig its claws into it.
She wouldn't let go of the board. Several attempts to push her off with a brush resulted in her running anywhere except where I wanted her to. Up my arm, around the other side of the cup, down the outside of her new jar, you get the idea. Once she was sufficiently spooked (3rd escape/re-cup cycle) she wouldn't let go of the board no matter what I did. This girl was freaked.
I eventually got tired of all this noise and just did this.
That's her clinging to the underside of the board inside her new enclosure. The board is weighted with a rock on top.
She stayed there for about 8 hours without budging. It wasn't a situation I felt good leaving as is. The drop was far enough that I think she may never have climbed down of her own volition and instead stayed there for days and days. That's a long time to hold the lid on with a rock and i can't imagine it was good for the T either.
So I moved it to this, that's some old webbing in there to try and make her more comfortable.
The webbing seemed to help. This was the next morning:
So I dumped her into the new enclosure. By this morning (monday) I was observing normal spidery behavior.
I remember just recently advising a newer hobbyist that rehousing often does not go as planned. Funny how within only a few days I received a object lesson in how true this can be.
So, lessons learned:
1: When rehousing speed demons with no assistance be VERY CAREFUL when/if you decide to take pics. Taking your eyes off an unrestrained T for even a second can make the situation go south in a hurry.
2: Use something smooth for sliding under the cup. Personally I'll be using scrap cuts of sheet acrylic instead of scraps of ragboard from now on. They're great anyway because it makes it easier to take ventral photos.
3: As soon as you think you know a thing or two about dealing with feisty, speedy T's you may just be reminded of just how out of control things can get.
But yaknow what else I forgot to do? Get a decent ventral sexing pic. :wall:
It looks like a molt isn't far off so hopefully i'll get an intact exuvia soon, before he/she/it digs in too much.
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