Sana
Arachnoprince
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2014
- Messages
- 1,139
I’m going to start with saying that I haven’t been taking pictures through the whole of this week so the only thing I can contribute will be pictures of the enclosure and the little one in question at the moment. That makes this a little more difficult. It’s also quite the saga so I don’t blame anybody that doesn’t want to read through this thread.
The balfouri under discussion is in a communal setup with only one other sibling currently. The other one is thriving and as far as I have observed isn’t causing issues with the one that’s not well. They sit together in the adorable pile of legs that you get with multiples. They get a lot of food and have multiple water bowls that are kept full. They are pretty close to the same size I would guess about 3.5” leg span. They are in a 10 gallon enclosure so they have space to go in different directions if they choose though they don’t generally. Because we’re talking multiple tarantulas in a single enclosure tracking molts is a little harder especially with these guys two cause they build with them instead of throwing them out. Based on body size I’m guessing this one molted fairly recently.
Last Thursday I noticed the little guy sitting in what looked like an odd position face down and like he was trying to squash himself into the back corner of the enclosure right at the edge of one of the burrow entrances. I wrote it off as a spider being a spider but he didn’t appear to move from that spot. He was still there Sunday while I was doing maintenance and I was concerned enough to get out the paint brush and touch legs because he really did look dead despite the lack of curl. He twitches legs at the paintbrush though not nearly the reaction that I would expect from a healthy spider. He then lost his balance and slid partway into the burrow. He attempted to climb back out and didn’t seem to be able to get a grip on anything though the edge of the burrow entrance is pretty solid. He continued to struggle to climb all the while sliding farther into the burrow. He finally lost his balance all together and fell into it backward. He couldn’t get turned over and gave up trying in about 15 seconds. Digging a tarantula out of a burrow while monitoring the cup sitting over his fortunately cooperative sibling is a pain. When I finally got him dig out (without any damage!) his abdomen looked a bit shriveled. Fall is being difficult in Colorado at the moment. We’re bouncing between the high 90s and the low 40s every day or two and the humidity is just as insane. Keeping the tarantulas stable and happy has been a challenge so it made sense to me that he would be dehydrated. I ended up separating him into a small enclosure with a full water dish that I draped him over the edge of. He drank through that and a second full one so clearly he was more dehydrated than I realized.
Monday evening I gave him a prekilled cricket that I mashed quite a bit so he didn’t have to work for the food at all. He picked it up before I went to bed and at least played with it.
Tuesday morning he was looking like a normal healthy (if a bit skinny) spider. I made sure he had water next to him before work. When I got home that evening he was flipped on his back. I left him alone on the hope that he was molting out of whatever issue he had despite appearing to have molted too recently to be molting again.
I gave him 24 hours (almost to the minute) and no molt. I took a chance and turned him back over with a paintbrush. He had a much more normal (if a little slow) reaction to being messed with. As soon as he was upright he took headed up the edge of the container slipped and fell on his back again. If I were a burrowing tarantula I would have been headed out if a small container that I couldn’t create a proper house in too. He seemed to be moving just fine overall and reacting pretty reasonably so I put him back in his regular enclosure. He refused the food and water that I stuck directly in front of him walked all the way around the outside of the enclosure and went back to his corner.
He and his sibling haven’t had any issues since the reintroduction last night. They are currently sitting side by side at the new burrow entrance. He doesn’t look right though. He’s not sitting quite as strangely as last week but still strangely. He’s obviously stressed from all the moving and poking but even with that consideration something still doesn’t seem right.
Now to insert pictures of the enclosure. Disclaimer: I spilled full water dishes into the substrate because I wasn’t thinking when I went to dig him out. The peat was also much more damp underneath than I originally realized as well so I’m waiting on it to dry a bit. The sibling spent the last several days rebuilding the burrow and rearranging to the general preference but it’s not nearly as established at the moment as it was previously. Again my fault. I’m not sure if I’ve made the right decisions through this whole week but I went with what seemed most reasonable at the time. I looked at these pictures and normally I wouldn’t be terribly concerned about the stress ball of a spider. It’s hard to find an angle the shows exactly how face planted and awkward he looks and my hands were already waaaay to close to a pair of OWs. He also kind of fell into the spot he’s in and hasn’t moved since.
The balfouri under discussion is in a communal setup with only one other sibling currently. The other one is thriving and as far as I have observed isn’t causing issues with the one that’s not well. They sit together in the adorable pile of legs that you get with multiples. They get a lot of food and have multiple water bowls that are kept full. They are pretty close to the same size I would guess about 3.5” leg span. They are in a 10 gallon enclosure so they have space to go in different directions if they choose though they don’t generally. Because we’re talking multiple tarantulas in a single enclosure tracking molts is a little harder especially with these guys two cause they build with them instead of throwing them out. Based on body size I’m guessing this one molted fairly recently.
Last Thursday I noticed the little guy sitting in what looked like an odd position face down and like he was trying to squash himself into the back corner of the enclosure right at the edge of one of the burrow entrances. I wrote it off as a spider being a spider but he didn’t appear to move from that spot. He was still there Sunday while I was doing maintenance and I was concerned enough to get out the paint brush and touch legs because he really did look dead despite the lack of curl. He twitches legs at the paintbrush though not nearly the reaction that I would expect from a healthy spider. He then lost his balance and slid partway into the burrow. He attempted to climb back out and didn’t seem to be able to get a grip on anything though the edge of the burrow entrance is pretty solid. He continued to struggle to climb all the while sliding farther into the burrow. He finally lost his balance all together and fell into it backward. He couldn’t get turned over and gave up trying in about 15 seconds. Digging a tarantula out of a burrow while monitoring the cup sitting over his fortunately cooperative sibling is a pain. When I finally got him dig out (without any damage!) his abdomen looked a bit shriveled. Fall is being difficult in Colorado at the moment. We’re bouncing between the high 90s and the low 40s every day or two and the humidity is just as insane. Keeping the tarantulas stable and happy has been a challenge so it made sense to me that he would be dehydrated. I ended up separating him into a small enclosure with a full water dish that I draped him over the edge of. He drank through that and a second full one so clearly he was more dehydrated than I realized.
Monday evening I gave him a prekilled cricket that I mashed quite a bit so he didn’t have to work for the food at all. He picked it up before I went to bed and at least played with it.
Tuesday morning he was looking like a normal healthy (if a bit skinny) spider. I made sure he had water next to him before work. When I got home that evening he was flipped on his back. I left him alone on the hope that he was molting out of whatever issue he had despite appearing to have molted too recently to be molting again.
I gave him 24 hours (almost to the minute) and no molt. I took a chance and turned him back over with a paintbrush. He had a much more normal (if a little slow) reaction to being messed with. As soon as he was upright he took headed up the edge of the container slipped and fell on his back again. If I were a burrowing tarantula I would have been headed out if a small container that I couldn’t create a proper house in too. He seemed to be moving just fine overall and reacting pretty reasonably so I put him back in his regular enclosure. He refused the food and water that I stuck directly in front of him walked all the way around the outside of the enclosure and went back to his corner.
He and his sibling haven’t had any issues since the reintroduction last night. They are currently sitting side by side at the new burrow entrance. He doesn’t look right though. He’s not sitting quite as strangely as last week but still strangely. He’s obviously stressed from all the moving and poking but even with that consideration something still doesn’t seem right.
Now to insert pictures of the enclosure. Disclaimer: I spilled full water dishes into the substrate because I wasn’t thinking when I went to dig him out. The peat was also much more damp underneath than I originally realized as well so I’m waiting on it to dry a bit. The sibling spent the last several days rebuilding the burrow and rearranging to the general preference but it’s not nearly as established at the moment as it was previously. Again my fault. I’m not sure if I’ve made the right decisions through this whole week but I went with what seemed most reasonable at the time. I looked at these pictures and normally I wouldn’t be terribly concerned about the stress ball of a spider. It’s hard to find an angle the shows exactly how face planted and awkward he looks and my hands were already waaaay to close to a pair of OWs. He also kind of fell into the spot he’s in and hasn’t moved since.
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