Old tarantula stuck in molt pics

[mantisfan101]

I thought I’d record my success so far with an old E campestratus that I recently extracted from an old molt.

When I found her:



After I took her out:


Her heart’s beating and I saw chelicerae movement. I guess only time will tell whether or not she pulls through.

 

[Spifdar]

Man, that looks like a whole surgery! I hope she makes it.

 

[MrsHaas]

I thought I’d record my success so far with an old E campestratus that I recently extracted from an old molt.

When I found her:
View attachment 497419


After I took her out:
View attachment 497420

Her heart’s beating and I saw chelicerae movement. I guess only time will tell whether or not she pulls through.

can it move around at all? I remember that I had to take care of a spider that basically got fried during transit and I put it on its back so that I could drip water into it mouth and give it “cricket soup“ which was just me musing up crickets and putting the guts where her mouth was. That way she could eat and drink and she lasted about two months I think. Sadly, she died eventually, but this might be a good way to try and make sure that it has a better chance of survival. Just speaking from personal experience. I’m so sorry, the poor thing looks like it’s not doing very well at all. Also, I know I like to do it a lot, but don’t blame yourself… Thus is nature. Let me know if you have any questions about trying to keep a half dead tarantula alive lol I have a bit of experience. I’ve done it with a few. One of them actually made a full recovery physically (it acted like a robot tho, just moving only when it needed to eat or drink and just being completely still the entire rest of the time… Pretty sure it’s central nervous system got pretty baked in the transit as well, but it did live for about 6 to 8 years after it first arrived in such perilous conditions. Good luck!!!

Also, keep it in a “ICU“… I kept mine in my dark linen closet, which was next to the heater on top of moist paper towels in a Tupperware. They were warm and in a quiet dark place where they could rest and try and focus on getting better. I would give it a couple of drops of water every day, and feed it 2x a week, but other than that I just left it alone, only checking when I needed to feed it or if it had been a little while in between.

Man, that looks like a whole surgery! I hope she makes it.

I’m very impressed- especially bc it’s still alive!!

 

[Ratmosphere]

Amazing work, hoping she pulls through!

 

[cold blood]

Looks like you did one heckuva job there....nice work....that is a difficult, painstaking process.

 

[Moakmeister]

That’s incredible. Good job. Please keep us posted.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

I thought I’d record my success so far with an old E campestratus that I recently extracted from an old molt.

When I found her:
View attachment 497419


After I took her out:
View attachment 497420

Her heart’s beating and I saw chelicerae movement. I guess only time will tell whether or not she pulls through.

wow how did you manage to free it ??
I’ve never rescued one from a stuck molt but I hope yours survives.

 

[mantisfan101]

wow how did you manage to free it ??
I’ve never rescued one from a stuck molt but I hope yours survives.

I used forceps, a scalpel, a needle, and a syringe with water. I used the first 3 to try and loosen the exoskeleton. Probably the most annoying part were the leg segments, they got stuck around her femurs and constricted bloodflow quite a bit i think. I wasn’t able to check for a sucking stomach because I was basically pulling torn parts of her old exoskeleton, but she looks plump enough to maybe pull through and molt again.

 

[jennywallace]

Great job there, hope she pulls through. I had to do this with a boehmei a while ago, but not as bad as yours.

 

[fcat]

Excellent work! How long was she stuck for?

 

[scottyk]

Amazing effort and hoping for the best!

 

[IntermittentSygnal]

Amazing work. Please do keep us posted. We’re all pulling for her!

 

[mantisfan101]

Excellent work! How long was she stuck for?

Over the weekend at least. I left Friday and noticed she was still in the same position- I thought she was dying because she was always in death curl but she would still respond. On Monday, I come in and see that her position is changed, like more splayed out and that’s when I found her. The photo I took is after I immediately removed her from the enclosure, and her fangs had already hardened.

Also she has survived the night. I checked on her today and she not responsive but I can see her heart beating. Other than that no changes but here’s a photo of her in her current “ICU” setup, any and all suggestions for the setup is welcome!

 

[Moakmeister]

Over the weekend at least. I left Friday and noticed she was still in the same position- I thought she was dying because she was always in death curl but she would still respond. On Monday, I come in and see that her position is changed, like more splayed out and that’s when I found her. The photo I took is after I immediately removed her from the enclosure, and her fangs had already hardened.

Also she has survived the night. I checked on her today and she not responsive but I can see her heart beating. Other than that no changes but here’s a photo of her in her current “ICU” setup, any and all suggestions for the setup is welcome!
View attachment 497476

Amazing news, thanks for the update.
Btw, have you checked our Conversation lately?

 

[Spifdar]

As far as I know ICUs are generally not recommended; good ventilation and regular humidity (for the species) are better. "ICU" tends to be older, outdated advice that can cause a lot more harm than good, making it harder for them to breathe etc. But as long as there's ventilation and the substrate isn't actually wet you might be okay. I'd remove the paper towel; they're chemically bleached and have a pretty strong smell up close and it's not really going to offer any benefits (it's actually not recommended to use them in the longterm as ex. coffee filters, as they leach some chemicals).

That aside, maybe try dipping her mouth in water if she hasn't had a drink, or even flip/drip.

 

[fcat]

Over the weekend at least. I left Friday and noticed she was still in the same position- I thought she was dying because she was always in death curl but she would still respond. On Monday, I come in and see that her position is changed, like more splayed out and that’s when I found her. The photo I took is after I immediately removed her from the enclosure, and her fangs had already hardened.

Also she has survived the night. I checked on her today and she not responsive but I can see her heart beating. Other than that no changes but here’s a photo of her in her current “ICU” setup, any and all suggestions for the setup is welcome!
View attachment 497476

I wasn’t there obviously but based of that description…Sounds like a premolt T that decided to molt upright, which seems to be more common in my old lady specimens. I’m assuming the change in position was because she decided to start molting. And being older, it’s obviously a longer process. It wouldn’t be uncommon for them to spend most of a day on their back before the process even got started. And then it would take hoursssss to complete.

Molting upright is not common but it’s not abnormal. Because I have had so many molt upright, one then even a serial upright molter, I always check the carapace for signs of separation…when you’ve had a T not molt for two years, they are molting until proven otherwise

Next time you encounter this, set your phone to record for a good 20 minutes, then when you watch it, slide through the recording (like fast forward) to see if there was any movement. Tiny little movements you’re looking for, so you may need to slide through the video a few times. If you see no movement, it’s a yellow light to intervene, proceed with caution, knowing you could do more harm than good. Any movement would be a red light, do not proceed!

I recently lost a maturing male who flipped for 3 days. He never got far enough to separate his sucking stomach. I was willing to do fluid replacement because I have the means, and would not expect him to go a whole molt cycle without any water or survive the next molt. But he was maturing so I wasn’t worried about him surviving his next molt. Moving forward, I’d rather have a T with no legs than no sucking stomach. I’m certain that when I removed the sucking stomach, more than just the sucking stomach came out. Maybe it was the new sucking stomach, maybe it was surrounding tissues if the digestive tract. Sounds traumatic right? Like there could be internal bleeding? That was my fear.

I guess what I’m getting at is that you may have saved her life or you or may have not given her time to complete a normal process because it got interrupted at the earliest stage of molting.

 

[Spifdar]

I wasn’t there obviously but based of that description…Sounds like a premolt T that decided to molt upright, which seems to be more common in my old lady specimens. I’m assuming the change in position was because she decided to start molting. And being older, it’s obviously a longer process. It wouldn’t be uncommon for them to spend most of a day on their back before the process even got started. And then it would take hoursssss to complete.

Molting upright is not common but it’s not abnormal. Because I have had so many molt upright, one then even a serial upright molter, I always check the carapace for signs of separation…when you’ve had a T not molt for two years, they are molting until proven otherwise

Next time you encounter this, set your phone to record for a good 20 minutes, then when you watch it, slide through the recording (like fast forward) to see if there was any movement. Tiny little movements you’re looking for, so you may need to slide through the video a few times. If you see no movement, it’s a yellow light to intervene, proceed with caution, knowing you could do more harm than good. Any movement would be a red light, do not proceed!

I recently lost a maturing male who flipped for 3 days. He never got far enough to separate his sucking stomach. I was willing to do fluid replacement because I have the means, and would not expect him to go a whole molt cycle without any water or survive the next molt. But he was maturing so I wasn’t worried about him surviving his next molt. Moving forward, I’d rather have a T with no legs than no sucking stomach. I’m certain that when I removed the sucking stomach, more than just the sucking stomach came out. Maybe it was the new sucking stomach, maybe it was surrounding tissues if the digestive tract. Sounds traumatic right? Like there could be internal bleeding? That was my fear.

I guess what I’m getting at is that you may have saved her life or you or may have not given her time to complete a normal process because it got interrupted at the earliest stage of molting.

If I'm not mistaken, the OP said by the time they intervened, the fangs had already hardened

 

[Motherofspiders112707]

Phenomenal job, OP! How is she doing now?

 

[mantisfan101]

Amazing news, thanks for the update.
Btw, have you checked our Conversation lately?

I’ll give it a look thank you for the heads up!

Phenomenal job, OP! How is she doing now?

Still the same, no change seen yet. I’ll update on her when I see her next

 

[mantisfan101]

Update- she died. Came back to find her covered in mold so I stuck the whole container in the freezer. Really bummed, when I came in the second day and saw her heart beating I thought she had a chance, but I guess something went wrong. Thanks for listening but hopefully I’ll never experience this again