How long to make a sperm web?

[WyvernsLair]

My male B. emilia (finally) has been laying down whispy webbing for a couple days now. Question is... how long would one assume it should take for him to finish the job of making his web and actually charge up with sperm?

I can't decide if he is either not sure of what he's doing or he's just being overly ambitious with his first web since there are 4 ladies waiting to meet him. At first it started out looking like a molt mat in the front corner of his cage. Then he started working up the sides. Then he seemed to decide to extended it. Not sure how to explain. But the main part of the webbing is about 3 inches wide and then it extends evenly towards the back of the cage about 7-8 inches and up the sides. Overall the current webbing takes up about 1/3 of the cage space. I came home today from work to see that back at the front he decided to add a nice rounded corner webbing stretching going from the middle of the front of the cage across to the side of the cage but the webbing does not actually molded into the corner of the cage itself... kinda like a thin hanging screen. ..but not really a hammock looking feature.

I have noticed that for the past week, 3 of the 4 girls have been hanging out at the fronts of their cages.. one in fact is hanging on the side of her cage the side closest to where the male is. I think that's a good sign that they are eager to meet their boyfriend? Until now all they ever did really was hide in the back unless they came to the front to get a drink from the water dishes.

 

[Talkenlate04]

Sperm webs start to finish take a few hours. After they are done most of the time they tear it down. They tend to start slow, producing a web once every few weeks, but before long you could see a new web produced every week for a month or more. Then it starts to slow down a bit. But if you are mating him he should keep going for a good period of time.

If you think you have seen a web or web remains like in this picture and your females are well fed its time to start breeding! Good luck. :clap:

 

[WyvernsLair]

Sperm webs start to finish take a few hours. After they are done most of the time they tear it down. They tend to start slow, producing a web once every few weeks, but before long you could see a new web produced every week for a month or more. Then it starts to slow down a bit. But if you are mating him he should keep going for a good period of time.

If you think you have seen a web or web remains like in this picture and your females are well fed its time to start breeding! Good luck.

In the few months that I have had him, the only web that has been in his cage was the molting mat. About two weeks after molting (molted early-June) he finally got around to doing some earth moving and destroyed that web. A few days ago he started laying down a lot of webbing... the ~ 3x8" rectangular matting and up the side of the cage... it's like he divided his cage length wise...and webbed up one half of it, but not all the way down the entire length of cage...only about 3/4 of the way down. Then today was the newest thing with that corner sheeting.. very whispy and blowing in the wind kind of webbing... the corner looks maybe a little torn down/hanging in the middle where he kinda got his legs tangled, but I just don't see any 'thick' pieces webbing like in your pics. so I don't know if he's done the deed or just taking his sweet time constructing things.

 

[Talkenlate04]

It sounds like that is the remains of a web, they don't always tear it all the way down. Can you take a picture? I can verify if it was or was not a sperm web with a picture.

 

[ratz00]

My male rosea RCF makes a new sperm web a few hours right after I mate him. It takes him a couple of hours to make the hammock, pinch the side lip, lay his sperm, charge his palps and trample the hammock. I mate him with my female twice a week.

 

[Talkenlate04]

There is such a thing as over kill when you mate Ts. Shoot for three pairings after sperm webs. And that is only if your female will let herself be mated three times. If the breeding does not take after three good pairings it's not going to take.

 

[WyvernsLair]

It sounds like that is the remains of a web, they don't always tear it all the way down. Can you take a picture? I can verify if it was or was not a sperm web with a picture.

Pic taken today and now you can see some thicker white areas on the substrate but that is because some of the webbing from the sides and corner came down since yesterday.

 

[Talkenlate04]

Yep hes ready to rock and roll. Nice lookin fellow too! Good luck!

 

[WyvernsLair]

latest update... went to feed the group of emilia's tonight trying to get them well fed before attempting any introductions. The male greedily grabbed 4 crickets. Went to open up one of the female's tanks and found a molt ! I was certainly not expecting that as she had only just molted back in April. unusual for an adult to molt in such a short period of time? or do you think she did it just to have a nice set of new clothes to show off for the boy? lol

Would it be better to wait until tomorrow to try introducing the male to a female since they ate tonight or is it better to feed and introduce in the same night?

 

[Talkenlate04]

If they are done eating same night is fine.

 

[WyvernsLair]

If they are done eating same night is fine.

Well last night I put the male in with one of the females. Had been suggested that I first start out with my smallest female before attempting to put him in with the largest. I set the cages next to each other on the floor and he had no problems about walking over to her pad. In the process of the male balancing between the two cages before finally descending into her cage, he touched one of her legs, then froze for a minute. She never so much as twitched or moved. He then walked to the back of her cage and crawled into her hide (flower pot) and went to sleep? No sparks flew. Left them together for half an hour.. no movement at all.. both sitting in their respective corners doing absolutely nothing. I guess that attempt was a bust or did I do something wrong?

 

[Talkenlate04]

Nope you did nothing wrong, they seem to have moods. Sometimes the female is in the mood and the male is not, and reversed the male will be ready to play and the female won't.

Oh and who ever told you to start with the smaller female, I don't know where they got that info. Try again tonight with a bigger female. These girls are recently molted right? It's going to take some patience, male brachys are little wusses sometimes and until you get them to hook up and do the deed, he will continue to be a wuss. But once he does take care of business once he will be a stud.

One more pointer. If the female is showing zero response and the male is walking to her do NOT let him touch her. She has to turn or move or vibrate in response for it to be a green light to mate. If she stays like stone and not moving, the chance of her killing him at the first touch skyrockets. Any movement from the female is a good sign.

And last be patient. It really can be a pain in the butt with those brachy males sometimes. I hope things go better the second go round!

 

[WyvernsLair]

These girls are recently molted right? It's going to take some patience, male brachys are little wusses sometimes and until you get them to hook up and do the deed, he will continue to be a wuss. But once he does take care of business once he will be a stud.

Yes, the one molted in April and then surprisingly again last week. The other 3 girls molted in May.

One more pointer. If the female is showing zero response and the male is walking to her do NOT let him touch her. She has to turn or move or vibrate in response for it to be a green light to mate. If she stays like stone and not moving, the chance of her killing him at the first touch skyrockets. Any movement from the female is a good sign.

The touch by the male was accidental. He was balancing on the edge of the cages and kinda tipped downward before catching his balance.

One of the females I noticed her abdomen has significantly increased in size and it's not from an abundance of food. They all get fed the same amount and the other girls have smaller abdomens. Do you think that it might be potential egg production process started because she senses a male around? Would she be the best next candidate to try with tonight? In terms of leg span she is my 2nd largest, but weight wise, she looks to be my heaviest.

 

[Talkenlate04]

I would mate the heavy weight. You planning on trying again tonight?

 

[WyvernsLair]

I would mate the heavy weight. You planning on trying again tonight?

sigh.. another bust.

Tried with the heavy girl and she had been active earlier this evening. Took the lids off. He really didn't need much nudging to get him to climb on top of his hide and start walking over into her cage. She did not move other than to sidle up closer to her flower pot. Over the next 10 minutes he carefully made his way up to the end where she was ... he was kinda using tippy toe steps. Eventually he was about parallel to her position and about 3 inches away. I had a small metal snake hook in between just in case. I'm glad I did.. without any warning she turned and lunged at / hit the snake hook then backed off just as fast...blink of an eye kinda thing. Almost gave me a heart attack. I think if it hadn't been there, she'd have probably had a direct hit to his abdomen. She sidled off inside her flower pot. I quickly put a screened shark cage over him. Then to see if she would try anything else, I carefully nudged her out of the flower pot. She eventually made her way up to the shark cage and put two front legs on it and stayed there for about 5 min. ultimately she moved on past and went around to hide under the flower pot. In the meantime he stayed frozen in place for the whole thing. I'm not even sure he realized she had lunged towards him earlier.

 

[Varden]

I hate to say it, but you might be interfering with their mating. Just about all of my Brachy girls have sat there like little lumps until he got close enough, then they lunged, he grabbed and hoisted them, then did the nasty before speedily getting out of Dodge. I've only have 2 females that drummed to any degree to spur him on: one smithi, who was enthusiastic, and one vagans, who seemed to do it as an afterthought.

If your male is fresh and not caged in with her, he will be fast enough to avoid her fangs. If she does grab him with intent to do damage, he'll be able to put up enough of a struggle to give you time to get between them. But I really think, if you remove the snake hook and let her jump at him, the instant she touches him she'll realize he's a male and go pliant in his grasp enough for him to get the job done.

Try not to touch or prod her during this. Females take much longer to relax after being manipulated, than males do. If you absolutely have to move one, use a syringe to drip water onto the back of their abdomen. They'll think it's rain and move, and sometimes that movement from one or both will get the mating going in the right direction.

 

[WyvernsLair]

I hate to say it, but I think you're interfering with their mating. Just about all of my Brachy girls have sat there like little lumps until he got close enough, then they lunged, he grabbed and hoisted them, then did the nasty before speedily getting out of Dodge.

hmm.. He's a virgin molted last month. I just hate thinking about possibly losing my only male on his very first time. LOL.

I had sooo wished that it was my smithi male that had matured this year and not the emilia. My original plan was that my smithi pair were to be my 1st time practice run at breeding spiders (since I have 2nd male that is probably two years away from maturing) and then having learned from that pair would feel more comfortable breeding the emilia's next year. But spiders will do what they want to do I guess.

 

[markface]

my G. roseas were the same way . he quietly tip toed up to her and as soon as he barely touched her she lunged at him . it took all of maybe a second or 2 for him to have her levered back and about 20 seconds doin his thing . after it was done he got out quick and she barely made a show of chasing him .

 

[Talkenlate04]

I agree with Varden to a point. There is a burst of movement from the females that can be viewed as aggression but it might just be the start of them hooking up and doing the deed. It takes some time to be able to spot the difference between that and straight I am not in the mood behavior.

 

[WyvernsLair]

Well.. at the time of the lunge... both had been sitting very still about 3 inches apart from each other doing nothing for a long while. I saw no twitching or drumming or anything during the initial time it took him to walk from his cage and over to where the female was. The last few steps it took for him to reach the spot that he finally stopped at he sorta tip toed it, but there was quite a bit of webbing on the substrate at that area and it sorta looked like he just didn't want to walk heavy on it.