Taking the sac

US Arachnids

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
253
Just wanted to find out a little information about caring for the eggs after removing the sac with the mother.

I got a sac from my 3.5" Female A. avic. 70-80 eggs.
She was mated with my MM male and was cooled for 2 weeks and was warmed up. She then produced a sac no more then 3 days after being warmed up and the eggs are good.

Im curious to know how often you roll the eggs after the eggs are placed in a coffee filter incubator. Also is it a Must that the eggs are rolled with a light hand motion or will they be fine the way they are.
Note: these are eggs, not eggs with legs.

This sac was layed on the 7th of this month and was pulled on the 23rd of this month as well.

thanks guys.
 

crawltech

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
1,695
shoulda left it with the mom till about the 30day mark.......put your coffe filter full of eggs into a rubbermade container, with moist paper towel on the bottom(put something between the coffe filter and the moist towel, so the filter doesnt soak up the water)....keep'em warm, and humid, and all should be well.....should be eggs wit legs around the 30day mark(from time of sac droppage)
 

Protectyaaaneck

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 2, 2008
Messages
3,105
Just wanted to find out a little information about caring for the eggs after removing the sac with the mother.

I got a sac from my 3.5" Female A. avic. 70-80 eggs.
She was mated with my MM male and was cooled for 2 weeks and was warmed up. She then produced a sac no more then 3 days after being warmed up and the eggs are good.

Im curious to know how often you roll the eggs after the eggs are placed in a coffee filter incubator. Also is it a Must that the eggs are rolled with a light hand motion or will they be fine the way they are.
Note: these are eggs, not eggs with legs.

This sac was layed on the 7th of this month and was pulled on the 23rd of this month as well.

thanks guys.
the eggs are good
How do you know this?


Why didn't you just leave it with the mom? Personally, I would have waited much longer than 2 weeks before pulling the sac from her. I tend to wait around a month or maybe longer before I pull a sac. If you wait for them to reach 1st instar there is no need to rotate them. By pulling it so early you have just created more work for yourself.

Btw, Avics are great moms. Really no reason to take the sac from them so early.

You should definitely check out the breeding report section for Avicularia avicularia. You'll see that most everyone waits at least a month or so before pulling the sac.


you should PM robc
Yes, because he's the only person with experience breeding tarantulas. (no offense Rob) Just found this comment a bit funny.
 
Last edited:

Jmugleston

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
1,578
Not sure why people cool spiders....Avics lay between 3 weeks and 3 months from breeding without cooling. But if the end result is the same, who cares how you get there.

That said, my avic eggs were typically much further along after 16 days. I've posted some recent breeding reports for this species and they detail their development. At 17-21 days they're usually at the 1st instar stage.

As for needing to roll the eggs, I've seen conflicting statements with little empirical evidence to support either side. Most seem to (out of habit, experience, custom, etc.) roll the eggsacs. Others have claimed that it is not needed if the eggs are spread out and not stacked upon each other.

Personally I prefer to keep them with the mothers until they're eggs with legs. In our collection we've had trouble getting them to develop to the post embryo (eggs with legs) stage outside the eggsac. There are numerous ways to incubate them artificially and ROBC and Talkenlate have both given instruction on their methods in other threads.

The amount of time between finding the eggsac and pulling the eggsac differs with each species. For avics, I typically wait 16-20 days. Pokies are about 21 days, and larger terrestrials go for 25-30. There is not "set" time for pulling them. Depends on the species, desire to raise slings, and personal preference.

Finally, if you want to know if the eggs are still good, shine a light through them. You should be able to see development in eggs that size.
 
Last edited:

US Arachnids

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
253
I decided to pull the sac for the experience of the eggs, The eggs are good and this is my 3rd sac, 1 from the A. brocklehursti, 1 from the G. pulchripes and the A. avic, besides avics are easy to breed. The topic was not weather or not I should have left the sac with the mom or not.

The point of the topic was caring for the eggs. Lets stay on topic guys lol

thanks,
 

Poxicator

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 16, 2007
Messages
354
I roll the eyes at least twice a day, its a rather simple task afterall. More important is to check for any dud eggs as you don't want one of these touching a good egg - it can have a negative affect on the good eggs and potentially pull down the whole sac.
Its also worthwhile checking there's a level of humidity so that the eggs are not dried out.
The speed at which your eggs reach ewl's and slings will depend on your temperatures. I often perceive it as 30 days but obviously with higher temperatures Ive noted people see that almost cut in half. You'll need to be mindful of not drying the incubator out if you raise the temps.
 

robd

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
May 19, 2009
Messages
373
I am just now noticing this "cooling period" thing. Interesting. I don't have enough experience with it all to really have a take on it but maybe it is more than a coincidence. I wouldn't know. Always good to see your two cents though, J.

I can't help but want to include some recent eggsac experiences of mine so people don't make the same mistakes I did. My T room happens to be in my basement and regardless of living in middle Tennessee, still gets pretty dry. Probably a result of the oil filled radiator I use in the room to keep the temps around 80 or so.

If you find your T room dries out relatively easily for any particular reason, it's definitely important to have a good humidifier pumping out the moisture. Cause if you don't, you greatly increase the risk of the sac not ending up good.

My first eggsac (C fasciatum) didn't make it because of this and the mother knew this because around day 21 or so, I found her chewing on it. There were about 18 eggs in a sac of 300+ that didn't dry out. They didn't make it to the eggs w/ legs stage, unfortunately.

At first I thought this was a result of me bugging her too much throughout the period of time where she was carrying the sac and maybe she didn't roll the it enough. While that may have affected things and I now know better, my E campestratus laid a dud sac about a month later with the same results. I didn't even know she was gravid.

So the moral of that story most of all is... when in doubt, humidify. Here's a very good humidifier, for what it's worth:

http://www.sylvane.com/enviracaire-ewm-350-humidifier.html

I've had it almost a month now. It works real well, but is a tad pricey. If you get one of those cheap $30 ones and use straight tap water, if you have bad tap water, it very possible that you could develop mold on the walls of the room and/or the surfaces near your humidifier. It happened to me with the cheap ones. The kind depicted in the link I included above utilizes a UV light to eliminate microbes, germs, etc.
 

robc

Arachnoemperor
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 10, 2007
Messages
3,824
Not sure why people cool spiders....Avics lay between 3 weeks and 3 months from breeding without cooling. But if the end result is the same, who cares how you get there.

That said, my avic eggs were typically much further along after 16 days. I've posted some recent breeding reports for this species and they detail their development. At 17-21 days they're usually at the 1st instar stage.

As for needing to roll the eggs, I've seen conflicting statements with little empirical evidence to support either side. Most seem to (out of habit, experience, custom, etc.) roll the eggsacs. Others have claimed that it is not needed if the eggs are spread out and not stacked upon each other.

Personally I prefer to keep them with the mothers until they're eggs with legs. In our collection we've had trouble getting them to develop to the post embryo (eggs with legs) stage outside the eggsac. There are numerous ways to incubate them artificially and ROBC and Talkenlate have both given instruction on their methods in other threads.

The amount of time between finding the eggsac and pulling the eggsac differs with each species. For avics, I typically wait 16-20 days. Pokies are about 21 days, and larger terrestrials go for 25-30. There is not "set" time for pulling them. Depends on the species, desire to raise slings, and personal preference.

Finally, if you want to know if the eggs are still good, shine a light through them. You should be able to see development in eggs that size.
This post sums it all up....should be a sticky!:clap:
 

robc

Arachnoemperor
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 10, 2007
Messages
3,824
I decided to pull the sac for the experience of the eggs, The eggs are good and this is my 3rd sac, 1 from the A. brocklehursti, 1 from the G. pulchripes and the A. avic, besides avics are easy to breed. The topic was not weather or not I should have left the sac with the mom or not.

The point of the topic was caring for the eggs. Lets stay on topic guys lol

thanks,
The eggs are 2 weeks correct? They where with mom for 2 weeks??
 
Top