Question

[JacenBeers]

I read on another board that it is common for Rose Hairs to go a long time between molts. Mine just took a year and a half between molts. Now is this gonna be a common thing for her, taking a long time between each molt, or is it different for every molt?

 

[MrDeranged]

In my experience, with any kind of tarantula, the time between molts generally stays the same or increases. The only time it may molt quicker is if there is an increase in temp and feedings, or if the T was injured, they will sometimes force a molt sooner. My rose hair is currently going on about 1 1/2 years without a molt. The time before that one was 1 year

Scott

 

[Rookie]

more molting

Scott (or anyone else),
Is it unhealthy for the spider if you..speed up the molting process? If you purposely feed it a little more, and turn up the heat a little more, is that a negative thing for the spider? Does it shorten its lifespan?
Just curious,
The Rookie

 

[Code Monkey]

Heh, talk about your unsettled issues:

As you probably knew, Tarantulas being exothermic critters have their overall metabolic rate determined by the temperature they're kept at,. *Most* arthropods and even most arachnids have more or less fixed number of moults they go through before dying, which you might not have known. Tarantulas, being among some of the longest lived invertebrates, don't seem to follow this rule of fixed instars, then death, at least not without a high degree of variability.

And there ends the consensus portion of this issue.

There's a rough ratio between body mass and total metabolic activity that determines an animal's average lifespan. This seems to hold pretty well across the board, Ts included. So, odds are that raising Ts at higher temps with an all you can eat buffet probably shortens their total lifespan. Now, how much it shortens it is where people get goofy ideas in their head. I've seen many posters drawing conclusions about Ts based on mice feeding studies, yeah, right.

The bottom line is that higher temps and higher food equals a faster growing T. This almost certainly affects their total life span but it is unknown to what degree since you can't say how much increasing the rate of moulting is affecting total life span, particularly for females (probably has a more marked effect with males). It's also probably never going to be solved because no one keeps Ts at the same conditions for their entire life spans.

As a secondary issue, I have seen some people put forth the idea that maybe all this power feeding, high temp raising of slings leads to more moulting problems. I have no good idea, but it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility that a T's new skin is more likely to get stuck if it's much larger than it "should be" for the Ts current size. I only know that I've never had a moulting death by raising my Ts at room temp, but that's hardly evidence one way or another.