Second guessing myself re: G. Pulchra juvenile premolt

[Sauga Bound]

Hello everyone,

I got a lovely G. Pulchra juvenile female (1 yr old; 2") about six weeks ago. The breeder told me she had last molted a month earlier, so in late October. She's my first tarantula and first pet arachnid, so I've never been through the molting process before, and I know these slow growing spiders can take their time going through the process. A week after I took her home, she settled in and started eating like a champ. I was feeding her mostly crickets, twice per week. I started her on 1/2" crickets, then switched to 3/4" adults. I also fed her a couple mealworms.

Ten days ago, I put a cricket in her enclosure, and for the first time she seemed to have no interest. At one point she was standing right over it, but just turned and slowly walked away into her burrow. Eventually I crushed its head and left it there for her overnight. The next morning she still hadn't eaten it. It was the last cricket in my stash, so I tried to feed her mealworms for the next couple days, to no avail. She would stand over them while they were wriggling, and I would have to periodically use my tongs to prevent them from burrowing before eventually taking them out, crushing their heads, and putting them back overnight. She didn't eat one.

Wondering if she might be in pre-molt, I bought two adult crickets from a local shop, crushed one's head (if she was in pre-molt, I didn't want to have to try and fish a cricket out of her enclosure) and left it by the entrance to her burrow overnight. She didn't eat it, and when I tried the same thing with the second one a few days later, it was also no dice. Combined with her disinterest in food, she displayed other signs of being in pre-molt, including: spending most of the time in her burrow compared to before, not climbing the sides of the enclosure, and being far less active. She also has a big ole abdomen, but the skin underneath hasn't darkened.

One thing she has been doing since she stopped eating is a lot of excavating at night. She's digging her burrow much deeper and leaving the substrate against the sides of the enclosure. Although her burrow's top half is a half-round of cork, partially buried, weeks ago she dug a little tunnel out the back, which I call her back door. So, a few days ago, she plugged up the back door with substrate and I thought to myself, okay, she's definitely in pre-molt. I've offered her mealworms every few days, but she never eats them.

Then this morning, I opened the shade and she was out of her burrow. She spent the whole day out like she used to, snoozing in the sunlight. At some point, she even removed the substrate that she used to close up her back door. She's there right now, half inside and half outside the burrow. I offered her another mealworm and she didn't take it. From everything I've read, I believe she's in pre-molt and I should just be patient. Her abdomen is still nice and plump, but her behavior is throwing me off because some days she's more active like today. Reopening her backdoor also threw me off.

I'm going to post some photos taken of her during the last couple days and I would love to hear feedback from others who have had G. Pulchras or experience with slow-growing spiders. I really love my spider and am doing everything I can to care for her according to best practices because I want her to be healthy and feel safe. I hope to spend many years with her and could really use some reassurance that she is in pre-molt. Or, if some don't think she is in pre-molt, some advice on what to do would be appreciated. I know I have to be patient with a T like her, but it's my first time going through this, so my confidence isn't high.

Thank-you in advance to anyone who replies.

 

[NMTs]

Your sling is telling you that it's full. You fed it way too much, way too often, and now it's not hungry. It's a common mistake by new T owners, specifically with slower growing genus like Grammostola and Aphonopelma. I've got 3 G. pulchra of various sizes, and the one around the size of yours is on day 506 of this current molt cycle - they take a long time between molts. If you feed them a ton of food early on in the molt cycle, then they'll fill up and won't want/need to eat until after the next molt. Mine still eats regularly because I feed it a small-medium cricket around every 2-3 WEEKS, not 2 large crickets every 2-3 days...

For now, there's no need to keep offering food, it's a waste of time. Just make sure there's a full water dish in the enclosure at all times and maybe try offering a small cricket in a few weeks. If it doesn't eat, wait a few more weeks and try again. If it doesn't eat, it doesn't mean anything other than it's not hungry and you need wait longer. Just enjoy observing it do spider things and it'll molt eventually. Then you can start over with a more reasonable feeding schedule.

 

[A guy]

Premolt or not, if it has a good sized abdomen and doesn't want to eat, leave it alone.

 

[kingshockey]

its fat and either full or has been stuffed into a long premolt just wait a week and try feeding pre killed again. then rinse/repeat until it actually molts also be carefull about exposing it to sunlight from an open window you might cook it. good luck

 

[viper69]

What’s your question?

Your T is so FAT, fatter than Jupiter

 

[fcat]

No one would judge you if you added another tarantula to your collection, to help you pass the time between molts

 

[Brewser]

Congrats, on your Big Black Beauty
Wait n Water
My best to yours and you

 

[Sauga Bound]

Thanks to everyone for their input and advice. I’ll be sure to feed her more conservatively in the future. She’s a lovely little spider and I enjoy watching her be a spider - not just feeding time, which is over very quickly. I honestly thought juveniles had to be fed 1-2 times per week because that is what I’ve read and heard just about everywhere. She was already quite plump when I got her.

I’m getting a GBB sling in a week, so that will be fun. While Noche (my G. Pulchra) is spending time in her burrow, I can watch Día (my GBB) web up her enclosure.

 

[Wolfram1]

good to hear that, be sure to be more conservative with the feedings from now on.
the abdomen is a clear visual indicator you can use to determine your feeding schedule

 

[Gevo]

I have a G. pulchra of similar size, and he behaved very similarly before his last molt. These guys are little piggies and will eat and eat and eat until they stop. Mine is fat right now too but would happily still eat if I gave him something, so I'm not offering.

The premolt period is really hard to discern, and I went through this last year with Luca. He burrowed away and stopped eating for about 5 months, came back up and had a couple of meals over another month or so, and then burrowed away again. His abdomen was plump for many, many months before darkening about a week or two before the molt happened. I know individuals don't always behave the same way, but that was my experience with him. Similarly, my B. hamorii had a plump, shiny abdomen and refused food for about 6 months before she molted. Hold off on feeding, but don't be surprised if you're waiting many more months for him to show some of the more obvious signs that a molt is imminent.

 

[Ramen]

That T is THICC, chill with the feedings for a bit. Good luck with the GBB, you will enjoy it. This is one of my favorite species!

 

[Dorifto]

Do not "overfeed" or she will fast for ages... even more than a year.

Excavating wise, that's because of loose substratre or just because she is looking for a more humid and cooler spot to chil on. From time to time give to the substrate a slight mist, just enough to not keep it overly dry, or she will enclose in her burrow, specially around her burrow. Not too much, just a bit.

Mine changed completely after ditching the coco fiber and start using good topsoil, peat and clay based one. I'd give it a try

Also do not feed her bases on schedules, it's a much better option to do it based on her abdomen's size and behaviour. You will know when she's hungry

Mine today


This is a typical pose when she is looking for food.

 

[cold blood]

Fat tarantulas don't need food!!

Stop obsessing over feeding it....it will begin eating after it's next molt....and that could be a long while because it was fattened so quickly.

 

[Sauga Bound]

I have a G. pulchra of similar size, and he behaved very similarly before his last molt. These guys are little piggies and will eat and eat and eat until they stop. Mine is fat right now too but would happily still eat if I gave him something, so I'm not offering.

The premolt period is really hard to discern, and I went through this last year with Luca. He burrowed away and stopped eating for about 5 months, came back up and had a couple of meals over another month or so, and then burrowed away again. His abdomen was plump for many, many months before darkening about a week or two before the molt happened. I know individuals don't always behave the same way, but that was my experience with him. Similarly, my B. hamorii had a plump, shiny abdomen and refused food for about 6 months before she molted. Hold off on feeding, but don't be surprised if you're waiting many more months for him to show some of the more obvious signs that a molt is imminent.

Hey there! How’s Luca doing? Your observations have been helpful to me because you are a little further along with Luca than I am with Noche, but they’re about the same size, so it gives me some idea of what to expect.

For those suggesting soil, I have some repti-soil or whatever the Exottera soil name is for when I rehouse her or have to clean her enclosure, but for now I’m going to stick with the coco husk and a really simple setup. She seems to like a clean and uncluttered space. I put some dry leaves down on the substrate just to make it more…dynamic a few weeks ago and she was not happy. Started climbing the roof again until I removed them. I’ll try again when she’s bigger. I want to find a nice rock to add for now, and maybe a small succulent in a few months.

I’ve been using a trick I learned from Tom Moran and am wetting a corner every few days until the moisture reaches a couple inches up the substrate. That way she can burrow to a level that has the amount of moisture and humidity she likes.

Here’s a pic of her peeking out her back door. She loves to relax like this, half in and half out.

 

[TheraMygale]

What at @Dorifto said about a bit of moisture is good advice. Its not rainfall type spritzing. Its light, and not every week. Its just to keep some kind of moisture.

a wet corner tom moran style isnt bad. But it can help to have a part of the burrow slightly moist. If the tunnel is long, you can choose where to inject a bit of water.

 

[Gevo]

Hey there! How’s Luca doing? Your observations have been helpful to me because you are a little further along with Luca than I am with Noche, but they’re about the same size, so it gives me some idea of what to expect.

Luca is doing great! His nickname is Baby Fat-Fat right now because he is a fat baby who is always looking for more food, haha!

The feeding thing has been a learning curve for me, even with all the info out there. For instance, because I have only two tarantulas, it wasn’t practical for me to feed them 1-2 times a week like a lot of the baseline suggestions out there say to at that size because I buy only a couple of feeders at a time (one of those two doesn’t like mealworms much, so that option didn’t last!). So, instead, I might feed them 1 silkworm or hornworm each, and because those tend to plump them up quickly, that’s all they get for a month. Or, if I’m going with crickets that are less fattening, I might buy 6 or 8 crickets at a time, knowing some are going to die within the week, and then each tarantula will get 2 or 3 crickets in the span of a week to ten days, and then I won’t feed them again for a few more weeks.

Even when we’re told to feed on abdomen size, that’s the kind of thing that takes some experience to gauge, and I don’t even know if I’m fully there yet myself. The abdomen should be about 1-1.5 times the width of the carapace, but in my experience, I have only watched my tarantulas slowly get bigger until they stop eating or I stop feeding them and have never seen them shrink back down in any obvious way that leads me to go, “oh, now’s the time to start feeding them again!” So, I think that while it’s sometimes described as a process that seems like they get bigger with feeding and then smaller with a diet in a way that makes it easy to maintain a specific abdomen size, I think the reality is that we’re just trying to not make them too fat too fast and hope that we fatten them up in a way that’s as close to being in synch with their natural molt cycle as we can make it. But, maybe one of the more experienced folks can weigh in on that because I don’t know if I’m misreading it—that’s just what it seems like to me at this particular juncture, haha!

 

[TheraMygale]

I guess we are going there. This is one of three.

they are FAT. Its too fat for my own good. Its not going to be kept this fat forever. It just happened even if i fed not a lot, not often.

this picture is perfect to see size ratio; abdo vs carapace.

look at the opisthosoma (tarantula abdomen) and make a ratio with the carapace. Its more then 2x. This is g pulchripes number three.

it does not need more food. Guess what, it can still eat. It just did.

your pulchra is far more advanced. The picture says it all.



this g pulchripes is less then two inches at max 2 inches.

if you only feed prey smaller then carapace, once at a time, its easy to see evolution.

keep your tarantula fat as mine, always, and welcome abcess problems, molt and impaction issues.

 

[Wolfram1]

So, I think that while it’s sometimes described as a process that seems like they get bigger with feeding and then smaller with a diet in a way that makes it easy to maintain a specific abdomen size, I think the reality is that we’re just trying to not make them too fat too fast and hope that we fatten them up in a way that’s as close to being in synch with their natural molt cycle as we can make it. But, maybe one of the more experienced folks can weigh in on that because I don’t know if I’m misreading it—that’s just what it seems like to me at this particular juncture, haha!

yea thats the thing, they dont slim down unless something is seriously wrong, so once you get a feel for the molting circle you try to space the feedings out over that timeframe.

it takes experience

just be observant, you'll get the hang of it eventually

at that size getting overfed won't be the end of the world, they are still growing and the molting circle will be relatively short

try to avoid it with adults, when they could skip molting for a few years and are heavy enough to seriously injure themselves in a fall

 

[Sauga Bound]

Thanks for all those who continued to offer helpful advice. I know everyone is trying to help, but the tone and language used in some of the posts is not helpful.

TheraMygale, I’m not sure exactly what you are trying to say in your last post, but it sounds like if I keep my spiders fat, I’ll probably end up killing them. Thank-you. That didn’t freak me out at all or send me down any rabbit holes about impaction.

I think some senior members should learn to be instructive without being overly harsh or scaremongering (this is not directed solely at one member.) I’ve been a teacher for 25 years, I learned a long time ago that advising and instructing is more effective when the instructor simply presents the information in an objective way, underscoring its importance without resorting to using worst case scenarios to get their point across, or admonishing learners for not knowing as much as the teacher knows.

I obviously came here to learn and don’t need people telling me to leave my spider alone (which isn‘t the same as telling me to stop feeding it) or to stop “obsessing about it.” I’m not obsessing at all - I’m trying to make sense of lots of conflicting information about feeding juveniles. The nuance required when feeding different species isn’t always reflected in instructions by well-regarded sources who suggest twice weekly feedings of juveniles, without discussing prey size or changing feeding schedules for different species of spiders.

Finally, let‘s get something straight - my Noche already came to me fat (looking back on photos I took of her when I first got her) and I only fed her five crickets total and a small mealworm over 19 days. If those five crickets created this problem in two weeks, then I guess it’s all my fault, but if the spider wasn’t already overfed to begin with, I don’t think they would have gotten her so fat, so quickly on five crickets.

This was their feeding schedule since I first got her, 6 weeks ago:

- First 10 days with Noche - she was settling in and didn’t eat all
- On December 10, I fed her first cricket - a 1/2” specimen
- On December 15, I fed her another 1/2” cricket
- On December 18, she got a 3/8” cricket a small mealworm
- On December 24, she got a 3/4” cricket
- On December 29, she got her last cricket, 3/4”
- Since December 29, she has had nothing to eat

So total food consumed in the six weeks in my care: 2 X 1/2” crickets; 1 X 3/8” cricket and 1 X small mealworm; 2 X 3/4“ crickets.

I’ve adjusted my feeding schedule and am letting her be until her abdomen shrinks significantly or she molts. Lesson learned. No need to keep piling on with the same advice.

Still, thank you to everyone for their help. I did a lot more research on feeding and feel like I understand my spider’s needs much better.

I’m including a photo of her the day I brought her home. The enclosure has seen a lot of changes, including much more substrate, and removing all the clutter. I think you’ll see she was already pretty hefty. That’s not to say I didn’t contribute, but I’ve learned and don’t need more people piling on to tell me how careless I’ve been in one way or another.

 

[Gevo]

One of the reasons I try to get on some of these posts from fellow beginners is because I think I’m still at a point where I can identify with and articulate some of the challenges we go through as beginners to understand some of the advice. Here’s another example: for the longest time, I didn’t know what it even meant to compare the abdomen to the carapace because in juvenile terrestrial species, the abdomen is usually going to be bigger (longer). It wasn’t until I saw someone on here mention the width that I had my “aha!” moment and felt more confident about monitoring that.

I think that with lots of things, it can be hard to remember what a beginner needs to know or to understand why a beginner might still have some sticky spots the further out we are from being a beginner ourselves.

It’s been pretty clear from your very first post that you’re what I would call a “competent beginner”—someone who has done a lot of research, who is adept at finding answers, and who is conscientious of their care and has obvious common sense and then seeks answers from the boards when you need confirmation or when you recognize that something is outside the information you can obtain with what’s out there.

This hobby is pretty simple, and yet a lot of things take experience, and we don’t have the benefit of resources that have been put together in a format built around learning. The books we have are old and provide some outdated advice that a beginner won’t necessarily know is outdated, and the information online is a mixed bag and requires that beginners figure out quickly what is and is not trustworthy without the benefit of experience to give them that instinct.

I find Wolfram’s comment very reassuring. Here’s a photo of Sybil (b. hamorii) who has been fasting for close to two months now but does not look like a molt is coming soon. You can see that she’s very fat, but not so much that I’m especially worried about her health.



And then here’s Luca, who is a CHONKER now and who would happily eat anything I gave him if I were still feeding him.




I have info about Luca’s previous two molts but only Sybil’s last molt. I don’t expect Luca to molt for at least another three or four months, and probably another 6 months for Sybil. So, I’m still learning right along with you how to balance this all out!