P. rufilata troubles

[ArachnoJoost]

Hey all,

My rufilata molted last night, but it was quite a shock to see how it got out of the molt. It has lost one leg (some bleeding, but it seems to have stopped), and the other legs look all spindly (sp?) something like that of an adult male (it's 3,5"), also, it hasn't grown a bit. It walks very clumsy, like some sort of drunken spider...
I bought this spider exactly 7 months ago, and this was the first molt in my posession. It has since eaten about 3 crickets, but looked quite fat, so that wasn't a worry, but since it is a quite fast growing species I was worried about the long time it took him to molt.
Now what should I do? I'll let it harden up and see if it can eat alright. I'd like to hear your opinions or experiences with this.
greetz,
Joost

 

[Poecilotheria]

Hi, maybe it has to do with the cage size. It could have been molting on its back(so the cage should be twice the height of its maximum legspan). Or the legs will be curly, I beleive Shultz & Shultz, in the "Tarantula Keepers Guide" had a little bit about that. Anyway, it said, it should be fine a few molts later.
Steve

 

[Immortal_sin]

hopefully it's going to be ok...but there are others here besides myself that have experienced problem molts like that that resulted in death. For some reason, it seems to be happening to pokies more often.
You might want to do a search, I think there are quite a few threads about this.
Good luck, hope it's going to be ok. does it act all spastic and uncoordinated?