Excessive hair kicking from my slings(i need some advice)

Wormtail39

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Apr 28, 2019
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Iv noticed that all 3 of my slings/juvis have bald bums iv never seen any of them flick, but they must be flicking quite allot as they all have big bald bums. i know the reasons why ts flick and thst they could be laying hairs around the enclosure in preparation to molt, however the species I have g pulchra, g rosea and b albiceps(the b albiceps Is apparently a kicker) the others however are supposedly not known for being big kickers so I was wandering does this mean I'm doing something wrong? they dont seem stressed out or anything like that, and dont flick when I feed or do maintenance so it's either stress or laying hairs for premolt my question is: is this something most small ts do and grow out of? Or could it be a husbandy mistake? Aside from being ugly I dont like the idea of millions of microscopic hairs floating around waiting to be breathed in or impale my eyes lol
 

basin79

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Iv noticed that all 3 of my slings/juvis have bald bums iv never seen any of them flick, but they must be flicking quite allot as they all have big bald bums. i know the reasons why ts flick and thst they could be laying hairs around the enclosure in preparation to molt, however the species I have g pulchra, g rosea and b albiceps(the b albiceps Is apparently a kicker) the others however are supposedly not known for being big kickers so I was wandering does this mean I'm doing something wrong? they dont seem stressed out or anything like that, and dont flick when I feed or do maintenance so it's either stress or laying hairs for premolt my question is: is this something most small ts do and grow out of? Or could it be a husbandy mistake? Aside from being ugly I dont like the idea of millions of microscopic hairs floating around waiting to be breathed in or impale my eyes lol
You don't have a brother or sister living with you do you? Could they be paying them a visit when you're not there? I only ask because apart from putting some down before moulting or the odd flick at me whilst feeding the hairs remain where they should.
 

testdasi

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May 26, 2008
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Iv noticed that all 3 of my slings/juvis have bald bums iv never seen any of them flick, but they must be flicking quite allot as they all have big bald bums. i know the reasons why ts flick and thst they could be laying hairs around the enclosure in preparation to molt, however the species I have g pulchra, g rosea and b albiceps(the b albiceps Is apparently a kicker) the others however are supposedly not known for being big kickers so I was wandering does this mean I'm doing something wrong? they dont seem stressed out or anything like that, and dont flick when I feed or do maintenance so it's either stress or laying hairs for premolt my question is: is this something most small ts do and grow out of? Or could it be a husbandy mistake? Aside from being ugly I dont like the idea of millions of microscopic hairs floating around waiting to be breathed in or impale my eyes lol
Firstly, unless there's wind, the urticating hair will fall to the substrate and get stuck there. So unless you stir up the substrate, you are unlikely to end up breathing it in or getting it in your eyes. If you need to clear things out, a few spray will help keeping it wet and clumpy (so less likely to blow up, if at all).

Slings are generally very afraid of everything (and they should be given their size) so any sort of disturbance and I'm not at all surprised that they will kick some hair. So as the previous poster suggested, find the disturbance. An out of the box suggestion is sub-woofer. I have had a few slings that kick hair when I play bassy music.

But other than that, if they still eat well, it should be fine.
 

Wormtail39

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Apr 28, 2019
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You don't have a brother or sister living with you do you? Could they be paying them a visit when you're not there? I only ask because apart from putting some down before moulting or the odd flick at me whilst feeding the hairs remain where they should.
Deffinetly not my family hates my spiders lol and I guess most likely answer is they are approaching a molt atleast one of them is the other molted rather recently, I guess il just have to try disturb them even less lol

Firstly, unless there's wind, the urticating hair will fall to the substrate and get stuck there. So unless you stir up the substrate, you are unlikely to end up breathing it in or getting it in your eyes. If you need to clear things out, a few spray will help keeping it wet and clumpy (so less likely to blow up, if at all).

Slings are generally very afraid of everything (and they should be given their size) so any sort of disturbance and I'm not at all surprised that they will kick some hair. So as the previous poster suggested, find the disturbance. An out of the box suggestion is sub-woofer. I have had a few slings that kick hair when I play bassy music.

But other than that, if they still eat well, it should be fine.
Thing is if never seen them kick they srent doing it when I feed or do maintenance and I cant see any hairs In their enclosures just bald bums lol
 
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The Grym Reaper

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Firstly, unless there's wind, the urticating hair will fall to the substrate and get stuck there. So unless you stir up the substrate, you are unlikely to end up breathing it in or getting it in your eyes.
They don't just get stuck in the floor and it takes very little to kick them back up into the air, just opening the enclosure is enough sometimes

If you need to clear things out, a few spray will help keeping it wet and clumpy (so less likely to blow up, if at all).
That's literally the worst thing you could do if you want to avoid kicking up previously discarded hairs.

Aside from being ugly I dont like the idea of millions of microscopic hairs floating around waiting to be breathed in or impale my eyes lol
You're extremely unlikely to breathe them in or get them in your eyes unless you're sticking your face in the enclosures when they kick.
 

viper69

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Iv noticed that all 3 of my slings/juvis have bald bums iv never seen any of them flick, but they must be flicking quite allot as they all have big bald bums. i know the reasons why ts flick and thst they could be laying hairs around the enclosure in preparation to molt, however the species I have g pulchra, g rosea and b albiceps(the b albiceps Is apparently a kicker) the others however are supposedly not known for being big kickers so I was wandering does this mean I'm doing something wrong? they dont seem stressed out or anything like that, and dont flick when I feed or do maintenance so it's either stress or laying hairs for premolt my question is: is this something most small ts do and grow out of? Or could it be a husbandy mistake? Aside from being ugly I dont like the idea of millions of microscopic hairs floating around waiting to be breathed in or impale my eyes lol
no way to tell what's going on. I don't read anything unusual. It's not always a sling issue. Setae in the eye is a concern, but the only recorded case/s happened because owner had them on fingers and then rubbed eye.
 

testdasi

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They don't just get stuck in the floor and it takes very little to kick them back up into the air, just opening the enclosure is enough sometimes
That's literally the worst thing you could do if you want to avoid kicking up previously discarded hairs.
Interesting. That's not what I had experienced. I'll keep an eye out (figuratively!) next time.
 

testdasi

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I just rehoused my LP who kicked like nobody business so I actually was able to test it out.

The hair, of course, would fly but after maybe 2-3cm elevation, it dropped to the substrate and didn't fly back up off the substrate.
It required very vigorous stirring of dry substrate for what looked like urticating hair to fly back up.
I let the hair settled and then sprayed the substrate with water and the hair didn't fly back up during the spraying.
I then stirred the substrate equally vigorously and nothing flew up (not even dust).

On the piece of cardboard I put under the T, the hair didn't stick, possibly because it's a smooth surface, which is clearly unlike the substrate I used (pure coco fibre).
My previous statement was clearly within the context of the substrate and not a smooth surface (e.g. the table in the vid above) so I still stand by my previous statement.
 

The Grym Reaper

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Yeah, I found out the hard way as I have by far the worst reactions to Lasiodora hairs out of any species and both of my girls were flicky.

Opening enclosure too quickly = Itching/red bumps on lower arms.
Spraying directly into their enclosure = Same plus upper arms and neck.

It's one of the many reasons I canned the notion of spraying tarantula enclosures.
 
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