redback spider help

[Jordan1998]

I have a redback spider and she looks really fat (she literally catches everything i give her and eat it immediately) and i was wondering if there’s a danger of her abdomen bursting? She eats so well that im actually scared of it endangering her health. Is this something worth worrying about or is there nothing going on? She is my first spider so i have no experience with them at all. I feed her once a week, should i reduce it to once every 2 weeks or once every month even? I feed her mealworms and sometimes red runners. (I added pictures)

 

[NYAN]

Her abdomen won’t burst for no reason. With that being said, it can happen if she’s was dropped or experienced some trauma.

 

[chanda]

While I have not kept redbacks, I have kept other Latrodectus species, and a swollen abdomen is not cause for alarm. Usually it just means that she has a belly full of eggs in the works. She'll get really fat - and then one morning you'll discover a fresh egg sac, and she'll have lost all that "baby weight." (If only it were so easy for us humans!)

She will continue eating, regain the weight, and repeat the cycle multiple times throughout her adult life, regardless of whether she has mated or not. If you are certain that she has not mated, then you don't need to worry about the eggs being fertile. If she has mated since her last molt - or if she was wild caught as an adult and has not molted in your care - then it's possible that the eggs will be fertile, in which case you may want to pull the sac, or at least make sure she's in an enclosure that hatchlings cannot escape from. (They can easily squeeze through screen or most ventilation holes.)

 

[Jordan1998]

While I have not kept redbacks, I have kept other Latrodectus species, and a swollen abdomen is not cause for alarm. Usually it just means that she has a belly full of eggs in the works. She'll get really fat - and then one morning you'll discover a fresh egg sac, and she'll have lost all that "baby weight." (If only it were so easy for us humans!)

She will continue eating, regain the weight, and repeat the cycle multiple times throughout her adult life, regardless of whether she has mated or not. If you are certain that she has not mated, then you don't need to worry about the eggs being fertile. If she has mated since her last molt - or if she was wild caught as an adult and has not molted in your care - then it's possible that the eggs will be fertile, in which case you may want to pull the sac, or at least make sure she's in an enclosure that hatchlings cannot escape from. (They can easily squeeze through screen or most ventilation holes.)

I bought her a month ago on a reptile fair. She was wild caught i believe. Imported from australia. But she is still very young so i doubt she is fertile.

 

[NYAN]

I bought her a month ago on a reptile fair. She was wild caught i believe. Imported from australia. But she is still very young so i doubt she is fertile.

That doesn’t make sense. To my knowledge, Australia had done one export of these. If she was a wild caught adult from Australia, it was illegally imported. Are you sure she didn’t come from Japan or another place where they are nonnative?

 

[Jordan1998]

That doesn’t make sense. To my knowledge, Australia had done one export of these. If she was a wild caught adult from Australia, it was illegally imported. Are you sure she didn’t come from Japan or another place where they are nonnative?

Well that’s what the seller told me I believe. For all I know she was captive bred. The man had 3 females and 3 males for sale so maybe they were captive bred. I just thought he said to me that were wildly caught. But nonetheless she is too young to even breed (I think).

While I have not kept redbacks, I have kept other Latrodectus species, and a swollen abdomen is not cause for alarm. Usually it just means that she has a belly full of eggs in the works. She'll get really fat - and then one morning you'll discover a fresh egg sac, and she'll have lost all that "baby weight." (If only it were so easy for us humans!)

She will continue eating, regain the weight, and repeat the cycle multiple times throughout her adult life, regardless of whether she has mated or not. If you are certain that she has not mated, then you don't need to worry about the eggs being fertile. If she has mated since her last molt - or if she was wild caught as an adult and has not molted in your care - then it's possible that the eggs will be fertile, in which case you may want to pull the sac, or at least make sure she's in an enclosure that hatchlings cannot escape from. (They can easily squeeze through screen or most ventilation holes.)

What does “pull the eggsac” mean? Like destroy it?

 

[NYAN]

What does “pull the eggsac” mean? Like destroy it?

Remove it from her enclosure so that’s when it hatches the babies are manageable.

 

[chanda]

What does “pull the eggsac” mean? Like destroy it?

Up to you. When one of my widows has an egg sac, I usually do destroy it because we have so many of the darn things in the yard, garage, garden shed, etc. that I don't really want to add to the population. But if I want to hatch one out, I just pull it and put it in a "baby proof" enclosure - usually a 32 oz. tall deli cup with a fabric mesh "bug lid" that the babies can't escape from.

 

[Jordan1998]

Remove it from her enclosure so that’s when it hatches the babies are manageable.

Ahhh baby widows would be so damn cool haha

Up to you. When one of my widows has an egg sac, I usually do destroy it because we have so many of the darn things in the yard, garage, garden shed, etc. that I don't really want to add to the population. But if I want to hatch one out, I just pull it and put it in a "baby proof" enclosure - usually a 32 oz. tall deli cup with a fabric mesh "bug lid" that the babies can't escape from.

I hope i can buy a male at my next reptile fair in april and try to mate them. Would be so cool

 

[chanda]

I hope i can buy a male at my next reptile fair in april and try to mate them. Would be so cool

You just need to be careful that the babies don't escape in your house. Assuming a normal indoor bug population, escaped widows can generally survive the typical indoor environment, finding out-of-the-way nooks and crannies to hide, and getting fat on whatever other household bugs you might have. If you share your home with other people, they might not be too thrilled about the idea of a bunch of free-range redback spiders in the house!

One tip that helps if you are raising baby widows is to make a feeding hole in the lid and plug it with a chunk of sponge. That way, you just have to pull out the sponge to drop in feeders, rather than having to remove the entire lid, which reduces the risk of escapees.

Also, assuming a large initial population of hatchlings, you can just let them eat each other at first, until the population is down to managable levels. They are a non-native species, so you should not release them. Unless you are prepared to separate and feed and take care of dozens (or even hundreds) of babies, cannibalism is a valid option. After all, they have to kill and eat something to survive - so why not let them feed on surplus siblings?