Hi everyone. This is my very first tarantula, his name is Jeepers. I got him from PetCo in November 2022 and it's been a little bit of a rocky road figuring out his body language and how to care for him properly. He was a gift from my sister and the first issue is that they sold us the wrong enclosure, it has a screen top and is a little too large for him at this age; I haven't been able to afford to get a plexiglass topped one, I wasn't too worried about the size because I figured he would grow into it but I think I made a huge mistake and didn't put enough substrate in the last time I deep cleaned. I cleaned it last May when he molted for the first time (in the time I've had him). Before he molted, he was very skittish and didn't like to eat very often, but afterwards, he was a VERY good eater, pouncing immediately on any cricket I gave him. He was acting normal, looked very relaxed, saw him drink water and lay around in his big hides.
Last week, the 13th, I gave him one medium cricket. The next day, I got strep throat. I didn't notice that he wasn't eating the cricket because I was sick, but turns out the cricket was in there terrorizing him for four days before I realized. I took it out, noticed he was stress scrunching / hiding behind his legs, standing on his tip toes, basically acting very stressed out. He hasn't rejected food in months, it's very abnormal. He also had not climbed the walls in a loooong time (which is why I stupidly didn't think adding more substrate would be necessary for the time being) but once the cricket was gone he started climbing immediately and constantly. At one point I found him literally hanging from the screen ceiling of the enclosure from his front legs, either because he slipped or was too weak to hold himself up; a few minutes later he hoisted his back end up. But for a day or two overall he was acting very sluggish and stressed and even had a very odd "ragdoll" behavior with his legs where he looked like he didn't care how he was positioned, just trying to stay up on the ceiling. That was yesterday. I told myself last night if he was still climbing I would put him into a smaller container. I waited because before his molt, he occasionally would do this before calming back down and I didn't want to further stress / make it worse him by forcing him to move into a small container.
This morning, I found him like this. (In the photos he is lying on his back, not doing a death curl just has his legs straight up in the air.) I haven't touched him but he is not moving at all and I fear he fell and got gravely injured and is probably dead or close to it. I read that they don't always do the death curl when they die suddenly. My sister told her coworker, who has several terrestrial tarantulas, and that coworker believes he is about to molt again. Could that be the case? Even though he just molted two months ago and there was seven months of no molts before that? I really have no idea what to do and I feel terrible if I accidentally killed him. Literally been crying all morning lmao. I just don't know if he is certainly dead or if I should wait to see if he's molting.
Last week, the 13th, I gave him one medium cricket. The next day, I got strep throat. I didn't notice that he wasn't eating the cricket because I was sick, but turns out the cricket was in there terrorizing him for four days before I realized. I took it out, noticed he was stress scrunching / hiding behind his legs, standing on his tip toes, basically acting very stressed out. He hasn't rejected food in months, it's very abnormal. He also had not climbed the walls in a loooong time (which is why I stupidly didn't think adding more substrate would be necessary for the time being) but once the cricket was gone he started climbing immediately and constantly. At one point I found him literally hanging from the screen ceiling of the enclosure from his front legs, either because he slipped or was too weak to hold himself up; a few minutes later he hoisted his back end up. But for a day or two overall he was acting very sluggish and stressed and even had a very odd "ragdoll" behavior with his legs where he looked like he didn't care how he was positioned, just trying to stay up on the ceiling. That was yesterday. I told myself last night if he was still climbing I would put him into a smaller container. I waited because before his molt, he occasionally would do this before calming back down and I didn't want to further stress / make it worse him by forcing him to move into a small container.
This morning, I found him like this. (In the photos he is lying on his back, not doing a death curl just has his legs straight up in the air.) I haven't touched him but he is not moving at all and I fear he fell and got gravely injured and is probably dead or close to it. I read that they don't always do the death curl when they die suddenly. My sister told her coworker, who has several terrestrial tarantulas, and that coworker believes he is about to molt again. Could that be the case? Even though he just molted two months ago and there was seven months of no molts before that? I really have no idea what to do and I feel terrible if I accidentally killed him. Literally been crying all morning lmao. I just don't know if he is certainly dead or if I should wait to see if he's molting.
