T. Blondi rejects food and has shrunken abdomen

[JimM]

I agree with everything you said there.

 

[Sharkulka22]

You´re scaring me... Before I bough my t.b., I´ve read everything, asked everyone I could and found out I shall feed pinkies. I want the best for my T, so I will start to feed roaches. I will tell you how was the shed. Uf!

 

[AmbushArachnids]

You´re scaring me... Before I bough my t.b., I´ve read everything, asked everyone I could and found out I shall feed pinkies. I want the best for my T, so I will start to feed roaches. I will tell you how was the shed. Uf!

Make sure she has lots of water to drink. Has she molted before in your care? Do you know her diet before you got her? The bigger they get the more can go wrong in the molting process. Make sure there is good humidity in her cage when she begins molting. (Reduce ventalation and mist the cage without disturbing her at all.) People say humidity doesnt matter but if there is very low humidity the fluid can still dry out inbetween her new and old exo. (not sure how weather is in your area) Especialy since they can take a long time to molt. 1-3 days in the molting process is not unheard of for Theraphosa genera. With all that said i hope she does molt out well for you. Keep us updated. -Doug P.

 

[Sharkulka22]

Thanks for your advices. I already put her watter dish almost into the entry of her hiding place. Yesterday I saw her drinking. This is first time she is going to shed in my care. I do not know what she ate before I got her but her abdomen was pretty small and from May she eats only pinkies. I do care a lot about humidity and it is constantly 90% and bigger part of surface is humid. I never disturb her, I don´t want to scare her. I did not know shedding can take such a long time. Hopefuly everything will go fine. I´ll be in touch.

 

[Fran]

Honestly , if from the time she start to molt to the moment she finishes is over 24h, start to worry about it

 

[Vespula]

I hope the molt goes well for her!

 

[Zman181]

She's looks very good and she has a nice abdomen. Would feed her roaches and Super worms. I dislike crickets however there are some places where you can purchase Adult crickets that are very nice sized. You can feed her 5 of those at a time. I wouldn't worry too much about her rejecting food at this time. She looks awsome

 

[Mattyb]

Stay away from pinkies. Spiders do not have bones and thusly cannot absorb calcium and mice contain alot of calcium it can cause molting problems esp in T. blodies they are known for that. I would recomend getting invertibrate feeders such as B. dubia roaches for larger tarantulas.

I Agree. No need to feed pinkies.

 

[Sharkulka22]

Yesterday she molted without any problem. I am very happy. She did not make any molting bed niether kicked any of her hairs. I saw here in arachnoboards photos of blondis being almost hiden by hairs, but it did not happen at all. Interesting.
We are going to feed it with roaches as you adviced and time by time pinkie.

 

[KnightinGale]

She is nice. Glad you figured out what was up. It is quite common for a tarantula to stop eating and moving as much a little before they start to darken. I hope the molt goes well!
As far as her size, she is not at all too large for insect food, even crickets right now. She is going to be much bigger, but for the moment you could give her roaches, superworms, waxworms, and crickets if you wanted as an alternative to mice (once she starts eating again). I doubt she will ever outgrow some of the larger species of roaches either.

Knight in Gale