Ok, 100's of mactans, now what?

[Scorp guy]

Ok, heres the deal. I decided to leave the L. mactan's 2 eggsacs with the mum. Well i didnt take action, now i got between 100-300 babies, tons of them, all over the walls and the lids. What should i do? i wanna keep about 4 of them, and the mom is on the lid, so it's impossible to feed, or to stretch panty hose over the lid so theres no escapes. can i please get some help?

 

[cacoseraph]

Ok, heres the deal. I decided to leave the L. mactan's 2 eggsacs with the mum. Well i didnt take action, now i got between 100-300 babies, tons of them, all over the walls and the lids. What should i do? i wanna keep about 4 of them, and the mom is on the lid, so it's impossible to feed, or to stretch panty hose over the lid so theres no escapes. can i please get some help?

well, as they are not native to your area i would try to keep escapees to a minimum

you could *try* fridging them for a minute or two to slow down the slings... it could kill all of them though, not sure how chilling would affect something so small.

what you have to watch out for is ballooning. i can't remember if it was Latrodectus or some random other spider i had make babies, but the little ones would balloon the first chance they got... the like, convection currents in my apartment were enough to give them lift... it was pretty frickin crazy

i don't really see why you can't pantyhose it, though. you just put pantyhose around the outside of the whole container to keep babies from leaking out vent holes

 

[Scorp guy]

Actually they are very native. I found this lil girl in a shed, along with 9 others, and about 80 if i counted the ones i saw.

Yeah, well shes clinging to the web, along with half of her babies, so i cant pantyhose it Thanks though, i appreciate the help, keep it coming!

 

[cacoseraph]

ah, i believe you have L. hesperus. for some bizzarre reason about 25% of the books i have read call it mactans. strangeness


since they are lokes just go outside and do what you gotta do

 

[jarrell]

my spider is hardy and could withstand the weeks of no food. so I guess you would be okay. I also feed her heavy when she has egg case. so I say cannabise those babies into there bigger and go through some instars. it may seem like a lot now just wait two weeks there will be twenty of them left.

I just put some gloves on and put the cage on a bucket with vaseline, I also sprayed the area heavly with cold ice water.(refreagerate wouldnt hurt) I notice that if most just climb down and went away from me when I open the lid. I breathed over the lid and sprayed water over the area. I notice some esacepes small slings running over the lid, I would use my pencil to catch there trail web and transefer them into a slimjim can, with decor. I put the lid on and bam. the rest I could spot and killed them. only one tried to go up the pencil and it was pretty easy to get them off. I let them cannablise, into there is just one in a a cage. (I kept a few in the momma cage which turned to one). my spider is hardy and could withstand the weeks of cannablisation.

 

[Splintercell]

Ok, heres the deal. I decided to leave the L. mactan's 2 eggsacs with the mum. Well i didnt take action, now i got between 100-300 babies, tons of them, all over the walls and the lids. What should i do? i wanna keep about 4 of them, and the mom is on the lid, so it's impossible to feed, or to stretch panty hose over the lid so theres no escapes. can i please get some help?

Hello,

If this happens again, here is a little trick:

Put the container of the latrodectus in the bathtub.Fil the bathtub with water but not to much, like 10 cm (3 inch?). Than you open the container.
Al spiderlings trying to escape wil die :,-( but it is safe!
By the way, the slings are verry cannibalistic so it is good to let them eat eachother. Only the good, strong once will survive. You could feed the mother wile the container is in the bathtub. Than close the container again wand wait a few weeks till there are only about 10 or 20 spiders left.

Hope to have helped you.

Kind regards, Tom. (hope my english is understandable)

 

[bugmankeith]

If you got it from outside just let the slings go free outside by the shed.

 

[asher8282]

curious

i looked a little but...
what is the difference between the L. mactans vs. L. hesperus? A lot of pix i found seemed to be sorta the same lookin..
a couple of good comparison shots would be nice (i.e. side by side)..

 

[buthus]

Turn the jar over. 99% of the slings will go upwards. Then you can do what you please. You can leave the jar that way...there will be plenty of air. Let the slings eat each other. Eventually you will have a new adult. Think of your spider jar as a snow globe ...just shake it up and throw some food in once a week or so.

You all need to calm down about escaping widow slings. I do get worried with certain species getting out in numbers ...they would need to get out of a fairly sealed room, but for a number to get out and actually web up, catch food and mature the chance is very small. As for monster widows growing up in some hidden niche within your house ...highly unlikely. But, if that actually happens, and you find such a squatter, just make sure she is well fed and she will never need to wonder!

 

[asher8282]

mmmk.. that doesnt answer MY question though..

 

[Brian S]

i looked a little but...
what is the difference between the L. mactans vs. L. hesperus? A lot of pix i found seemed to be sorta the same lookin..
a couple of good comparison shots would be nice (i.e. side by side)..

They are very very similar indeed. The best thing to go by is where it was collected. Now in saying that, the "hourglass" is often different however I have seen L mactans from some areas of the Country that had a screwy shaped hourglass that actually more closely resembled hesparus and I know they were mactans as they were from Georgia.

 

[asher8282]

i see.. thank you for explaining that.
p.