Rosie eggsac surprise - while out of town!!!

betuana

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 21, 2008
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So I'm out of town at a school practicum. My fiance has been very helpful in learning how to feed and water all my little friends for me while I'm gone, since my living arrangements at the practicum don't allow for pets. I have about 4-4.5 weeks left, and just recently got an interesting update about Flower, my first T, a RCF G. Rosea.

Some background: I got Flower from the LPS a little over a year ago - they had had her there for 3-4 months and she didn't molt in that time. She still hasn't molted since I got her. Being an inexpensive adult Rosie at a pet shop, she's probably WC. I've been waiting for over a year for her to molt - as has Zaphod, my nice little MM RCF Rosie who matured out in the past couple months. He has been very eager to go see her, hanging out as close as he can get to her enclosure from his - but they have yet to ever meet.

Flower has been fasting for the past...6-7 months or so, and just recently started eating again. She also went from pet rock to bulldozer recently, completely burying her coconut hut hide she's been using for the past year, and digging out a ditch/tunnel to hide in along the back of the enclosure. She did that just a couple weeks ago, right before I left, and started eating again - voraciously.

My fiance noticed on Friday that she had dug out a shallow ditch in the middle of her enclosure and had webbed it - heavily. I was hoping to hear a report of a molt finally - though I did say it COULD be an eggsac start by the description, and not just a molt mat. I thought that the molt was more likely though, and that I was dreaming a bit thinking she would lay a sac.

Well, Saturday he looked in and the webbing was all torn up and gone, and she was sitting on what he took for a lump of substrate in the back. He figured she decided she didn't like her webbing there, and tore it up, since she's been such a bulldozer recently. But when he opened it to add a bit of water to her dish, my normally fairly calm rosie reared up and acted very aggressive. It was then that he noticed the lump of substrate looked more like a round ball of webbing with substrate stuck on the outside!

Since talking to me, he's taken a few more peeks (careful not to touch the cage, spend too much time there, or cause any disturbance) and has reported that she is carefully moving, turning, and tending what, from the description, appears to be an eggsac. He hasn't gotten any pictures, and I haven't gotten to see it (she DID have to wait until I was gone, didn't she! At least she waited until I'd be back about 30-35 days after she laid, and not the full 6-7 weeks of my practicum!).

Anyways, given that she is likely WC, and she is apparently unmolted since she was caught, it stands to reason that there is a chance it is a fertile sac. I had planned on breeding her - but not until AFTER she molted, and after I would be home to monitor the whole procecss. Still, my fiance has been very good, and is making sure to kep EVERYONE out of the room, minimize any activity in there to only feeding the Ts that live there, and just monitoring and sending me updates.

I think he's doing a good job as far as I can tell from a few hundred miles away, but if anyone has any tips they think would be good to send to someone who knows nothing about Ts who is T-sitting and has a rosie sac to watch (only to 30-35 days after sac creation - it can stay with mom for that time!!!), let me know and I'll pass the advice on!

But I found it to be somewhat unexpected, but fun news. There is a chance of the pitter patter of hundreds or thousands of little feet (200 Ts = 1600 legs!! lots of little feet! LOL) in the nearer future than I had planned! This is my first time dealing with a sac of any kind - I've read many previous threads of advice to people in the same situation, but that doesn't make advice people want to offer unwelcome. However, I just thought I'd share the story, I'm still somewhat amused (and a bit disappointed) that my T decided to wait until I was going to be stuck out of town for an extended time to do this. Its that whole Murphy's Law sort of deal I guess!

If I actually end up with babies, I'll post pictures and updates (as I'll be back home at that point!)
 
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