My Goliath bird eater is dying

[cadiecat59]

I have a goliath bird Eater. She’s a confirmed female and about two-ish months ago, she had molted for the first time since owning her. When she molted, I hadn’t noticed anything abnormal during her molt and I know what to look for as I have a few other tarantulas. After a few weeks, I noticed this red blood striping in her legs that weren’t there previous to this last molt. I chalked it up to just healing similar to their fangs being blood red and darkening out over a couple weeks, but the red blood-colored streaks in her legs never went away. About a month ago she lost one leg, and we did what we could to help her and then last week, she lost another leg. And she continues to have this red striping in her legs and it looks almost like she has red scratches on her abdomen? We have changed her substrate, created a bigger deeper hide thinking maybe she was stressing herself from not having a “proper” hide, but last night we noticed she was moving abnormally slow and today she is in what seems to be the death curl. She regularly drinks water and hasn’t ate a ton after her molt but has had a few crickets/hornworms that is hasn’t been worrisome. I don’t know what to do to save her. She even looks like the fur around her legs might be almost, peeling off?? There hasn’t been any weird white gunk around her like we’ve been searching for, I will take more pictures once I am home. Does anybody have any advise? Has anybody seen this before? I can’t find any problems with somebody’s T like this anywhere.

 

[HooahArmy]

Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear about your poor girl! Can you post a photo of her, especially some of her enclosure, her full body, and perhaps some of the red on her legs? The gang here may be able to help more with those.

 

[cadiecat59]

My boyfriend is taking pictures right now. Usually her humidity stays anywhere between 40-70%, and the temp usually sits between 70-80 in that room. She has a heat lamp in the winter and sits next to my other heated reptiles. If you look you can see the red striping like, striping her legs. She’s also balding

She has a 20 gallon tank as, when spread out, she’s closer to 8-9 inches long. She’s been active before and loves to walk and dig new hides but hasn’t been active since losing her first leg.

This is what she looked like prior to her molt. She was very defensive and spicy, but very healthy and ate regularly. It’s hard to tell but she had none of that striping before

 

[cold blood]

It requires damp substrate....looks like it had a rough molt.

 

[Smotzer]

Theraphosa require deep moist substrate that it appears it doesn’t quite have, which can explain the downward progression.

 

[Myrlina]

Just to clarify, were those pics taken BEFORE the moult? That does not look like a healthy spider. The abdomen is small and wrinkled and the legs tucked under. The substrate looks dry, this is a moisture dependent species. The lid appears to be mesh, which will allow a lot of ventilation so you need to wet down the substrate frequently to keep it damp. I would avoid a heat lamp, if the temp in the room is above 70 degrees F you don't need extra heating and lamps dry things out. I would pour water around the edges of the enclosure to let it soak down until all the substrate is damp (but not soggy or swampy). Go on YouTube and search for Tom's Big Spiders to see how a Theraphosa should be set up. Best of luck.

 

[Olan]

That red striping is normal post-molt.

Doesn’t look good though, she’s probably on her way out

 

[darkness975]

Also the fall risk on the left side doesn't help.

 

[liquidfluidity]

Definitely too dry and not deep enough. I have 5 of the 3 Theraphosa specias and have been keeping the for quite a while.

Maybe try putting her water dish near her, over flow it so that the sub is very damp around it. See if she responds to the extra moisture. At this point, I'm not sure I would want to move her(at all) into an ICU, but she definitely looks dehydrated and like her molt was pretty rough.