Grammostola Pulchripes Not Eating

krsears

Arachnopeon
Joined
Aug 22, 2016
Messages
2
My GP is not eating. I know I'm supposed to leave them alone but I'm concerned and want to see if anyone else has had the same issue. I got it as a sling in September '16. It was a regular eater (1 pinhead roach every 3 days). Very active as it would regularly crawl up the side of the enclosure and up onto my hand. to my surprise, it molted the first week of November and I was excited to see the small yellow (gold) lines on the legs. I stopped offering food for a week to give the exoskeleton time to harden. I started offering food (pinhead roaches) shortly thereafter but it didn't seem interested at all. I waited another week and tried again...nothing. Five days later, it was buried in the substrate so I let it be. 2 weeks later, I put a little larger roach in the enclosure and left it. In 3 days I returned, roach was crawling around and no sign of the T. I took the roach out and waited another week. To my surprise, the T was on top of the substrate. Its rump had the black dot and the hairs were missing. It seemed too soon for another molt but I guess anything is possible. I closed the enclosure and left it. Christmas came and went. I have other T's to tend to so checking on the GP, making sure nothing has changed, and offeing the occasional roach is all I have done in the past 80 days. It's buried at the bottom of the substrate and nothing has changed since. Anything I should do/try?
 

nicodimus22

Arachnomancer
Arachnosupporter
Joined
Sep 26, 2013
Messages
715
Please post a photo of the enclosure so we can see if anything obvious jumps out at us. (It may be set up perfectly. Sometimes they just do whatever they want to on their schedule.)
 

Crone Returns

Arachnoangel
Joined
Mar 22, 2016
Messages
990
That's some serious premolt my friend. Keep waterbowl full (good luck with that), let the little cutie come out when she wants. You can leave prekilled prey at the burrow's entrance, but don't leave live prey.
Patience is a hard lesson.
Oh yeah, don't try to dig him out.
 

cold blood

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,223
Yeah, its pre-molt....you say it hasn't eaten since the last molt, but it certainly has. Could there have been roaches or mealworms in the enclosure that you were not aware of?

That is a big enclosure for that little guy...my experience with them is that they hide a lot more when housed in large enclosures, and as a result, they eat a lot less (I had several that never emerged) so they grow at an incredibly slow pace. Housed in smaller enclosures they tend to be consistently aggressive eaters and much faster molters. Like molting every 40-60 days versus 4-6 months.
This is what I would suggest, its about 1/2 the size of its current home.
 

krsears

Arachnopeon
Joined
Aug 22, 2016
Messages
2
Yeah, its pre-molt....you say it hasn't eaten since the last molt, but it certainly has. Could there have been roaches or mealworms in the enclosure that you were not aware of?

That is a big enclosure for that little guy...my experience with them is that they hide a lot more when housed in large enclosures, and as a result, they eat a lot less (I had several that never emerged) so they grow at an incredibly slow pace. Housed in smaller enclosures they tend to be consistently aggressive eaters and much faster molters. Like molting every 40-60 days versus 4-6 months.
This is what I would suggest, its about 1/2 the size of its current home.
Thanks, I will give it a try!
 
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