MBALFOURI COMMUNAL

[Matt Man]

100% agree. It's like selling baby bunnies at Easter. 90 plus percent are dead / abandoned in the 1st 6 months

 

[jrh3]

none of us are trying to prove we are right. Just do a search for communal here and go through all the threads. Everyone here is simply stating what they have seen repeatedly over the last decade.

Not a search for communal, search balfouri and 90% of the ones against it have never kept one. So they can’t speak first hand, they can only assume due to other species. Balfouri are different. Even a search here will result more success than fails. Don’t speak for everyone, I have had 2 successful communals of balfouri that were sold off and the people with them are still having success. I would encourage you to search @Blue Jaye threads on balfouri and what is documented before you make the assumption that balfouri communals don't work.

100% agree. It's like selling baby bunnies at Easter. 90 plus percent are dead / abandoned in the 1st 6 months

Simply not true for balfouri.

 

[Alveus]

So post me photos/threads /blogs of a thriving ADULT communal that has lasted years.

Here you go. Over 3 years as (sub)adults in this DIY enclosure and raised togheter from 3i silngs in a smaller one.

I started with 10 balfuris but.... 7 of them turned in to males. I gave them all to a breeder. But one i never catched... he was too causious. Or... to horny

I never got him out of the enclosure. He mated with all 3 females...

.... until the babies spilled out of the hidings.


But there was always a female checking on them.
I don't know what they exactly did. But all three of them laid down on the babies. It looked like they feed them. But they had no prayitem and i never heard of trophallaxis among spiders...

But they shared also the feeders with the youngsters

Looks annoying sometimes.

Now they're big enough and the femals don't tollerate them hanging from their chelizeras anymore. They startet to flick the youngsters away, wich looks really hillarious. But i never saw any sign of aggression.

What i think, is important for a balfouri communal enclosure is: enough hiding space. And they love to dig. So provide them with alot of digging space.

Remember my picture from the enclosure above?

It's completly hollow behind the rocks and filled with digable substrate.

 

[Matt Man]

View attachment 489725
Here you go. Over 3 years as (sub)adults in this DIY enclosure and raised togheter from 3i silngs in a smaller one.

I started with 10 balfuris but.... 7 of them turned in to males. I gave them all to a breeder. But one i never catched... he was too causious. Or... to horny
View attachment 489726
I never got him out of the enclosure. He mated with all 3 females...
View attachment 489727
.... until the babies spilled out of the hidings.

View attachment 489728
But there was always a female checking on them.
I don't know what they exactly did. But all three of them laid down on the babies. It looked like they feed them. But they had no prayitem and i never heard of trophallaxis among spiders...
View attachment 489729
But they shared also the feeders with the youngsters
View attachment 489730
Looks annoying sometimes.
View attachment 489731
Now they're big enough and the femals don't tollerate them hanging from their chelizeras anymore. They startet to flick the youngsters away, wich looks really hillarious. But i never saw any sign of aggression.

What i think, is important for a balfouri communal enclosure is: enough hiding space. And they love to dig. So provide them with alot of digging space.

Remember my picture from the enclosure above?
View attachment 489732
It's completly hollow behind the rocks and filled with digable substrate.

So you have 3 AFs and one male, plus slings/juveniles now. In what appears to be a 4' wide x 3' deep x 2' (+/-) high enclosure.
That seems adequate space for 3 adults Females , and a breeder male (lucky him) So you line bred them? Sibling to sibling?
Keep me posted on what happens with all the juveniles.

 

[Alveus]

4' = 4 feet?

It's more like half this size.

So you line bred them? Sibling to sibling?

I don't know. The breeder had multible eggsacs in his communal.
I managed to catch every male befor e could mate with a female. But the last one was stobern. Never wanderet and as soon as i opend the enclosure o catch him, he was gone.

Keep me posted on what happens with all the juveniles.

I will. My theorie/hope is, that the juveniles start to wandering of, as soon there is not enough room anymore. So i can catch them, without destroying the enclosure.

 

[Matt Man]

4' = 4 feet?

It's more like half this size.

I will. My theorie/hope is, that the juveniles start to wandering of, as soon there is not enough room anymore. So i can catch them, without destroying the enclosure.

Looks way bigger than 2' if those larger Ts are adults but okay.
So you are going to keep the population @ 3 with additions of breeder males?
Lastly, so it is mostly rock? Did you add some substrate on top of it? Hard to see because of the webbing. It looks like a good set up
Thanks

 

[TheraMygale]

Looks way bigger than 2' if those larger Ts are adults but okay.
So you are going to keep the population @ 3 with additions of breeder males?
Lastly, so it is mostly rock? Did you add some substrate on top of it? Hard to see because of the webbing. It looks like a good set up
Thanks

I dont think Yemen has tons of humus type soil in the first place.

 

[Alveus]

So you are going to keep the population @ 3 with additions of breeder males?

My original Plan was 5 Females. No breeding in this enclosure.
Now i have to let Nature finde its way.

One Idea:
On the side of the enclosure are big holes for ventilation. So i could switch the cover with hamstertube wich go in to a smaler plastic enclosure. So they can wander of by them selfe.
Same thingewhat they would do in nature.

Lastly, so it is mostly rock? Did you add some substrate on top of it?

Under the rocks is much substrate to dig. Here i posted how it looks without soil from above

Remember my picture from the enclosure above?

It's completly hollow behind the rocks and filled with digable substrate.

 

[Wolfram1]

aren't they your own fake rocks?
made from styrofoam and coated by cement and clay or are these real rocks?
Or a mix of both?

i can never tell with your setups