...ok and it's my first post here too ....I haven't kept T's since I was in my early twenties and they were a mexican red knee and another of questionable origin. But now I have my first old world T, a haplopelma lividum who arrived in a small kritter keeper with potting soil and had dug herself a nice burrow in the two years her former keeper had her in it.
the first attachment is her original emclosure...you can see the plethora of cricket carcasses in there...yuck! So I gave a little room to grow...I got the next size up Kritter keeper and added some drainage holes along the lower edges and a thermometer an humidity gauge, as well as a reptile pad on the right rear. I used a antimicrobial water dish with a cricket 'ladder built in that looks like a stump. The burrow in the new cage was first created by packing the cocnut fiber around a toilet paper tube(I wanted to see her in the burrow since her old one was in middle of cage) during the ever so exciting transfer she went right up to the roof of the new cage until evening when she wandered a bit then created the web you see in the pics in one night. productive!
fyi when i did the tranfer since i wasnt preserving her old burrow(as it was kinda smelly)I first removed all the dirt from around her burrow tube a little at a time throughout the day until all that was left was the debris attached to her web tube...then I slipped a piece of firm cardboard under the burrow and folded it up the side and over the burrow hole(no bites for me!!) then with her enclosed within the cardboard tacolifted the whole thing gently out and into new cage with bare(shaking) hands..where I encouraged her to come out of the burrow. she readily complied and immediatly leapt at my face through the glass(you could see a drip of venom where she tried to bite) ....in the end a very easy transfer and no possibilites to escape!
the first attachment is her original emclosure...you can see the plethora of cricket carcasses in there...yuck! So I gave a little room to grow...I got the next size up Kritter keeper and added some drainage holes along the lower edges and a thermometer an humidity gauge, as well as a reptile pad on the right rear. I used a antimicrobial water dish with a cricket 'ladder built in that looks like a stump. The burrow in the new cage was first created by packing the cocnut fiber around a toilet paper tube(I wanted to see her in the burrow since her old one was in middle of cage) during the ever so exciting transfer she went right up to the roof of the new cage until evening when she wandered a bit then created the web you see in the pics in one night. productive!
fyi when i did the tranfer since i wasnt preserving her old burrow(as it was kinda smelly)I first removed all the dirt from around her burrow tube a little at a time throughout the day until all that was left was the debris attached to her web tube...then I slipped a piece of firm cardboard under the burrow and folded it up the side and over the burrow hole(no bites for me!!) then with her enclosed within the cardboard tacolifted the whole thing gently out and into new cage with bare(shaking) hands..where I encouraged her to come out of the burrow. she readily complied and immediatly leapt at my face through the glass(you could see a drip of venom where she tried to bite) ....in the end a very easy transfer and no possibilites to escape!
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