Heteropoda boiei failed egg sac- Question!

[Tea Cake]

Hi!

Last week I received a gravid female H. boiei. I offered her some food once I'd got her settled in her new enclosure and given her an adjustment period. She refused it so I figured perhaps she was close to laying. This morning I came in to check on everything and there's the start of a sac on the side of the glass, and her eggs are spilled beneath it. She's nowhere to be seen so I assume she's aborted the mission completely and hidden herself away.

My question is, if I were able to scoop up some of her eggs, is there any way I may be able to incubate them in something in lieu of a sac (my thought was a well ventilated 4oz deli with slightly moistened paper towel inside, kept inside my makeshift incubator which is a slightly modified heated plant propagator)? At this stage, I don't expect any slings from this (I don't even know for sure if they're fertile), but it seems like a good opportunity to try something I've not done before, and I wondered if anyone here has had similar experience.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ratmosphere]

Honestly you should give it a shot. Don't put the deli cup in with the moist paper towel. Below will give you an idea on how to set up the proper incubator.

 

[Tea Cake]

Honestly you should give it a shot. Don't put the deli cup in with the moist paper towel. Below will give you an idea on how to set up the proper incubator.

Awesome. Thanks very much! I’ll give this a watch now and adjust as necessary!

 

[Tea Cake]

Have switched to this sort of setup now. In the couple of hours that have elapsed since I salvaged the eggs, some seem to have held up and most seem to have ruptured and as a result look like they've melted... which I was expecting tbh. No way a load of them didn't get damaged during the recovery process. Still, the good ones look, well, good, haha! Here's hoping!

 

[NYAN]

Yes, you would be able to incubate them. However, if she was so fast to eat the sac it may have been a dud.

 

[Tea Cake]

Yes, you would be able to incubate them. However, if she was so fast to eat the sac it may have been a dud.

She didn't eat it. I found everything she had made abandoned. It seems she ditched the sac she had created because the eggs ended up down the glass. I have what I was able to salvage in an incubator now and it's becoming clear which eggs are good and which are past salvation... fingers crossed the ones that are looking decent will develop.

 

[Stefan2209]

Had the same thing happen with a wc H. davidbowie female long years ago. Started to construct a sac and to lay eggs and apparently abandoned it while still in the process, so the egg-mass ran down the wall of her enclosure.

Didn't try to incubate any, as i discovered the mess the next morning and all was already dried up.

I only once tried to artificially incubate eggs. While it wasn't successful this might very well have been due to my own inexperience.

I suggest you give it a try, you've got nothing to lose but may be able to rescue at least some and also gain some interesting experience.

 

[Tea Cake]

Had the same thing happen with a wc H. davidbowie female long years ago. Started to construct a sac and to lay eggs and apparently abandoned it while still in the process, so the egg-mass ran down the wall of her enclosure.

Didn't try to incubate any, as i discovered the mess the next morning and all was already dried up.

I only once tried to artificially incubate eggs. While it wasn't successful this might very well have been due to my own inexperience.

I suggest you give it a try, you've got nothing to lose but may be able to rescue at least some and also gain some interesting experience.

Thank you! It's so disappointing to see a failed sac when you've been expecting it and getting hyped for it, isn't it? Sorry you had it happen with your H. davidbowie. As for these, I've got them all set up in an incubator now, and it's beginning to become clear which eggs are beyond salvation and which may actually have a chance. Since I found them this morning, the bad ones have remained yellow, darkened and started to liquidise, but several of the others seem to be turning paler and have taken on an almost matte appearance, which I take to be a good sign as, to me, they look how I would expect the eggs within a viable sac to look at an early stage. I'm going to give them a while to turn some more and then I shall remove the goopy ones. I really hope I can get something out of them, but as with all my various experiences over the years with creatures of all sorts, I'm going into this expecting nothing to come of it. I'll do my bit, and if I get babies then it'll be a happy bonus.