Hoping for a miracle recovery

[Hamadryad]

:8o Awwwww.....I found my female subadult Black phase Chinese Earth tiger near death yesterday morning....for reasons unbeknownst to me she was on her way to checking out....practically in the death curl.I still detected faint signs of life in her as she was twitching slightly so after I recovered from the initial shock ( you know that sick feeling you get when you discover a prize specimen dead or dying??? of course you do...) I held her in my hand and force fed her water with an eyedropper and attempted to hydrate her.I then put her in a spider ICU and crossed my fingers as I left for the day.I fully expected her to be dead when I returned home but amazingly she was out of the death curl and resting somewhat more normally in the classic legs all splayed out tarantula pose.I tested her for reactivity and she made a hissing sound and tried to bite me somewhat...I was besides myself with joy...(Ok...I have been in this hobby a little too long now I think... ) she has been upgraded to serious but I believe stable condition and I am letting her rest and am hoping for the best but I am still prepared for the worst...Keep your fingers and toes crossed everybody and think of beloved vicious "Trinity" and perhaps she will live to bite another day....

The Evil Spider Hunter

 

[Joy]

Good luck, ESH! Here's hoping you pull her through.

Joy

 

[RugbyDave]

aw man, good luck!!!

please let us know how the T ends up doing!!! sucha beautiful T, too! (arent they all)

wishing the best!
peace
dave

 

[jwb121377]

Good luck John, it sounds as if your doing all you can for her. Nothing is worse then having one of your favorites take a turn for the worse. Keep us updated on any progress made.

 

[Sean]

good luck, im glad to hear its doing better though keep us posted

 

[TheWidowsPeak]

good luck, if it does die at least you did all you could, but I got a feeling its gonna pull through

 

[skadiwolf]

well i hope she's doing better, hey, the hissing and biting are definitely a positive sign!

so any further updates on her condition? is she still in the ICU or have you moved her back yet?

 

[Hamadryad]

update on my sick EarthTiger

Well, she is still alive and is reactive to stimuli....she will attempt to bite if I stroke her abdomen...but she appears weak and is having difficulty supporting her weight...seems like she has is having trouble moving..so at this point I would have to say it is a 50/50 sort of thing...I am hoping that she will regain her strength and pull through but I am prepared for the worst if that is what happens...I have done all I can for her - I would rehydrate her more but it could be dangerous as she is capable of biting right now...so I am keeping her warm and humid and quiet and I am praying to the great spider Goddess Arachnea to help her pull through..I would really HATE to lose her as she is a beautiful specimen of a Black Phase Earthtiger ....but time will tell...I will keep you all updated on her status...

The Evil Spider Hunter

 

[Immortal_sin]

whoa...what a bummer...

Hope she pulls through....
do you know if she's WC? Since it seems like no external signs of a problem, I'm wondering about a parasite??
keep us updated

 

[Hamadryad]

She isnt doing so good...

Well,
Unfortunately it appears as though she has taken a turn for the worse....she was improving slightly but her condition has downgraded and she is back in the spider ICU where I am fighting tooth and nail to save her.I have attempted to hydrate her by hand and there is not much else I can do.Very curious as to why she suddenly took ill....she IS a wild caught specimen so there are probably a whole slew of possible causes for her dying...parasites,method of collection ( I have heard that it is popular to pour gasoline into the burrow to force a spider out ) it is hard to say what could have happened to her to bring about her death...well, not yet but I doubt she is going to make it.I am coming to the opinion that the Chinese Earthtigers are indeed rather delicate...I will keep you all posted as to her condition but at this moment it appears grave.

The Evil Spider Hunter

 

[RugbyDave]

hey man, i hope youre not the evil spider hunter who poured gasoline down the burrow

but seriously, i know its hard sometimes, but you have to tell yourself (especialyl if its true!) that you did everything you could, and its just a wild specimen and if its natural death (parasites, whatever), it would have died anyways.

i know that doesnt bring back the time, energy, emotion (and money), but it does help you in the fact that you know you didnt hasten its death..

just keep hoping, since there have been some T lives brought back from the BRINK of death!

as dumas (pére) once wrote, "wait and hope"

good luck!
peace
dave

 

[Hamadryad]

She did not make it

Well,
Unfortunately I have to report that she did not pull thru.She WAS making some good progress for a short while there but she seemed to be having problems with supporting her weight on her legs and was basically flopping around - and then she went downhill from there.She ceased all signs of life by yesterday evening and I pronounced her dead shortly thereafter.It also appeared that she soiled herself as well as her anus was exuding excrement - I am not sure what caused her death but I have seen this kind of weakness before and it invariably leads to the death of the tarantula.

She was a wild caught specimen which leads me to believe that there could be any number of reasons for her failing to thrive and eventually dying.I must say that I am totally in favor of Captive bred now and will try to avoid obtaining wild caught specimens in the future.

I must say that I am taking her loss better now than I would have when I first got into this hobby.Over the last two years that I have been into the invert hobby I have witnessed births and deaths in my inverts and I have come to accept that sometimes you lose one.It is practically impossible when you are dealing with living creatures to avoid it. I must admit though that it DOES hurt in the pocketbook though....I paid $70.00 for her and that sucks...:8o urrrrrrrr..........

:? The Evil Spider Hunter

 

[Immortal_sin]

my deepest condolences SH...what a sorry thing to happen. In light of the unknown cause, you might want to contact Kerry Gowin, she has a thread here giving information on how to send dead specimens, or at least fluid samples to her so she can work on them in her lab.
http://www.arachnopets.com/arachnoboards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9707

see this thread for lots of good information!
Holley

 

[belewfripp]

I'm sorry to hear she didn't make it. I'd been checking the thread every so often and had been encouraged that she seemed to be doing better at first.

Adrian

 

[skadiwolf]

my condolences. it's always a sad thing to see a loss of life. however, your dedication to trying to save her is a very admirable thing and speaks very highly of you.

i'm sorry about the monetary loss, but at least emotionally realize you did all you could for her.

she probably had a much better life than she would have with some people who might not have even known she was dying or tried to do a single thing.

all we can do is try our best, and that's what you did. (hug)

 

[si_sleaf]

I've never had a spider die yet as I've only been in the hobby for a short while. It must be real tough if you've had them for a long time because I'm really attached to mine that I've only had for a couple of months. But, you know, every cloud has a silver lining.....

It must be time to go Tarantula shopping

 

[sunnymarcie]

John,
What terrible news
It's already been said but, you did the best for her.
At least you tried.

At the moment I have a similar problem with one of my sons T's.

I think this means we have to go shopping again

I finally found a way to convince the hubby that we NEED
another T.TEE HEE HEE!

 

[TheSpiderHouse]

hi Spider Hunter. Sorry to hear you lost her It sounds like you did everything short of cpr.

 

[MizM]

John-eeeee! You JUST got her! What a bummer, she was a gorgeous creature!! I thought she was $90.00? I'm SO SORRY!

Ter

 

[Hamadryad]

Yup..just got her too....Sh!t!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, that is a major bummer....I just got her about a week ago at the IRBA show - I really truly do not know what happened to her - she just was in a death curl Thursday morning and I tried my best to pull her out of it and for a short time it seemed like she was rallying but all of a sudden she took a sudden turn for the worse and died. All I can say is that I HAVE seen this sort of peculiar "weakness" in tarantulas before.They will appear to be fine and then all of a sudden they are too weak to support themselves on their legs and try as hard as you might you arent gonna save them.

Unfortunately being that she was indeed a wild caught specimen there are probably a whole medley of possible reasons that she failed to thrive and ultimately died.I have to say that I am much more in favor of obtaining captive bred or long term captive spiders now.The wild caught specimens are sort of iffy chancy I think.And I am coming to the conclusion that H.schmidti is a rather delicate species...very easy to goof with them and lose a specimen.:8o It sucks because she was truly an impressive spider and I had been waiting like two months to get her so it DOES bother me that I lost her.But I am at least happy that my two new snakes I picked up at the show are feeding and doing well ( Knock on wood ) perhaps I will give H.schmidti another shot someday but not soon as I am still smarting from the $70.00 down the tube. sheesh......

The Evil Spider Hunter:?