Separating huntsman spider slings, the impossible task

[Dennis Nedry]

Just to get this out of the way if I sound like I’m totally incompetent at separating baby spiders in this thread it’s because I am. At the start of the week I cut open an Isopeda sp. egg sac, the mother was possibly the pissiest spider I have ever seen and continued to hate everything for a couple of days after I took the eggs. I thought it might’ve been a failed sac as I had kept it very dry in the enclosure but nonetheless I still managed to get hundreds of little green wriggling slings out of it.

Fast forward a day and one early bloomer moults into an independent and mobile spiderling, separating it was a bit of a challenge. Everything was going well at first until it decided to take a swan dive onto a critter keeper lid and hide between the slits and evaded me for about 10 full minutes. Finally got the little ass into the container and the suicidal spider decides to try and crush itself between the lid and container so that led to another couple of minutes of trying to guide it back out of the lip of the container lid.

Fast forward another couple of days and they all decided to moult into mobile slings at once and clustering around the edges of the lid. Nice to see theyre trying to make separation absolutely impossible for me. I ended up just giving up and swapped the lids on the incubation container and one of the seperate containers as about 10-15 slings were hanging around on it and have been left for another couple of days. As you can see they’re making it really easy for me to seperate them into more containers by all hanging on the lid


Now I’m just gonna wait and see if I can sell enough to buy a few breeding pairs of Pandercetes gracilis, a much smaller and much faster species of huntsman. That should be fun

 

[WildSpider]

Just to get this out of the way if I sound like I’m totally incompetent at separating baby spiders in this thread it’s because I am. At the start of the week I cut open an Isopeda sp. egg sac, the mother was possibly the pissiest spider I have ever seen and continued to hate everything for a couple of days after I took the eggs. I thought it might’ve been a failed sac as I had kept it very dry in the enclosure but nonetheless I still managed to get hundreds of little green wriggling slings out of it.

Fast forward a day and one early bloomer moults into an independent and mobile spiderling, separating it was a bit of a challenge. Everything was going well at first until it decided to take a swan dive onto a critter keeper lid and hide between the slits and evaded me for about 10 full minutes. Finally got the little ass into the container and the suicidal spider decides to try and crush itself between the lid and container so that led to another couple of minutes of trying to guide it back out of the lip of the container lid.

Fast forward another couple of days and they all decided to moult into mobile slings at once and clustering around the edges of the lid. Nice to see theyre trying to make separation absolutely impossible for me. I ended up just giving up and swapped the lids on the incubation container and one of the seperate containers as about 10-15 slings were hanging around on it and have been left for another couple of days. As you can see they’re making it really easy for me to seperate them into more containers by all hanging on the lid
View attachment 290442

Now I’m just gonna wait and see if I can sell enough to buy a few breeding pairs of Pandercetes gracilis, a much smaller and much faster species of huntsman. That should be fun

Wow, pretty cute little guys . This is a video I watched a while back on separating Barylestis scutatus slings. It seems like a pretty relaxing way to go:

 

[NYAN]

You need to put the enclosure into a bigger container or a bathtub. You can probably herd them very carefully with a piece of straw or something then. You’ll likely have little demons making a bolt for it, but you should be able to catch them. Be sure to cover the drain!

You have two choices here I think. You can separate them one by one inside of that container by bending the lid in such a way that only a portion is open at a time. You can also try just going for gold and opening the whole thing in the larger container (preferably a plastic storage tub). This will give you more room to work with, and when the slings inevitably bolt, it won’t be as much of a stampede, because they will obviously spook eachother when one decides to start running laps around the cup. Think of it like catching a school of fish one by one?

@Greasylake what did you do again?

 

[Dennis Nedry]

You need to put the enclosure into a bigger container or a bathtub. You can probably herd them very carefully with a piece of straw or something then. You’ll likely have little demons making a bolt for it, but you should be able to catch them. Be sure to cover the drain!

You have two choices here I think. You can separate them one by one inside of that container by bending the lid in such a way that only a portion is open at a time. You can also try just going for gold and opening the whole thing in the larger container (preferably a plastic storage tub. This will give you more room to work with, and when the slings inevitably bolt, it won’t be a stampede because they will obviously spook eachother. Think of it like catching a school of fish one by one?

Tried that, apparently they can run on water pretty well and it’s pretty hard to keep more than one trying to climb the sides of the enclosure. Still it’s my only real option. The containers I’m using don’t really let me open a tiny bit at a time

 

[Greasylake]

@Greasylake what did you do again?

I didnt see you mention me but I'm here now. Basically I had the container in my bathtub with catch cups and vials close to me. I would take off the lid then immediately cover the container with a piece of paper and carefully put the lid down upside down. The slings were pretty well behaved as long as you dont breathe on them so I was able to herd them into vials one by one, if one ran away I would just put a vial over it and go back to it later. I would do the switch again with the paper and repeat the process. You'll probably get 15 or 20 on each switch, which is a fairly manageable number compared to the whole sack at once. Oh yeah and it would probably be easier if you used a color of paper that the slings contrast against. Black construction paper would be ideal.

 

[The Snark]

And the answer is, fuzz. Try the sporks out on fuzzy or furry surfaces. Velour, flannel, fake animal fur, whatever. The hilltribe kids put them on their head where hair tends to impede them.