Tarantula155
Arachnobaron
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2012
- Messages
- 494
I've been raising Parasteatoda tepidariorum for a while now and recently I lost my largest juvenile specimen to some kind of disease from her prey.
It's getting cold where I live, so going out finding living insects is quite difficult. Luckily, I live in a city where cockroaches practically thrive in every home.. so I have an overabundance supply of spider food , although I have to catch them late at night when they come out.
Anyways, my spider lived off little cockroaches that I've been finding in my house.. until just recently I found an odd roach that was out during the day on the floor of my kitchen (this is the first strange sign, they only come out at night from my experience) and when I caught the little sucker he was a bit sluggish. Stupid me, this should of been a sign to not feed it to one of my spidersoh:
Well, my largest tepidariorum juvenile snatched it fast and I thought I'd be good with feeding for another week. I woke up the next morning to find my spider twitching in place, hardly moving at all. I thought she might just be molting (but she molted a week before this meal). I was reluctant to mess with her at all, just let her be and maybe she can fight off whatever she's ill with.
Sadly, the day after.. she was on the floor of her container dead.
Easily one of the strangest death incidents I've ever encountered. I'm still not 100% sure this is what caused it, but she was absolutely fine and an aggressive glutton before this roach.
Has anyone ever experienced such a thing?
It's getting cold where I live, so going out finding living insects is quite difficult. Luckily, I live in a city where cockroaches practically thrive in every home.. so I have an overabundance supply of spider food , although I have to catch them late at night when they come out.
Anyways, my spider lived off little cockroaches that I've been finding in my house.. until just recently I found an odd roach that was out during the day on the floor of my kitchen (this is the first strange sign, they only come out at night from my experience) and when I caught the little sucker he was a bit sluggish. Stupid me, this should of been a sign to not feed it to one of my spidersoh:
Well, my largest tepidariorum juvenile snatched it fast and I thought I'd be good with feeding for another week. I woke up the next morning to find my spider twitching in place, hardly moving at all. I thought she might just be molting (but she molted a week before this meal). I was reluctant to mess with her at all, just let her be and maybe she can fight off whatever she's ill with.
Sadly, the day after.. she was on the floor of her container dead.
Easily one of the strangest death incidents I've ever encountered. I'm still not 100% sure this is what caused it, but she was absolutely fine and an aggressive glutton before this roach.
Has anyone ever experienced such a thing?