Tarantula eating eggs

[flamekitty84]

hey everyone, so my female G. pulchripes laid some surprise eggs for me yesterday

it looks like the eggs are all over the place. I thought they were supposed to be all in a pile, not running down the side of the web?
in any case, I woke up today to find she had destroyed the web and was eating the eggs.

there seems to be a pile by her foot that I might be able to scoop out and save
is this feasible, or am I making a sad attempt at saving some already-dead babies?
I was not expecting any of this to happen, so I am a bit shaken by all of it
thank you in advance

 

[MrDave]

Has she been bred with a male? If she hasn't mated, then those can't be viable eggs.

 

[just1moreT]

If they where good they want be now .just clean up what she
doesn't .more than likely they wasn't fertile.

 

[Exoskeleton Invertebrates]

It seems that that she made the egg sac in a bad place. That's why her eggs are all over the place. Like others have said the egg May of not been fertile.

 

[flamekitty84]

damn, alright
I really have no way of knowing if she was mated or not. I have not attempted a mating myself, but I just recently got her, so idk
basically there's no saving any of these and my efforts will be fruitless and disappointing?

 

[just1moreT]

That's a good point ,she might not have had good places to achor her web.they usually build a web in a confined place like a burrow.

Yeah no need to try save them they will just dry up and turn black and mold

 

[flamekitty84]

she did have a hide available, not sure why she didn't use it like a normal tarantula lol

 

[Exoskeleton Invertebrates]

she did have a hide available, not sure why she didn't use it like a normal tarantula lol

The best thing you can do at this point is get her out of the enclosure, clean the substrate and re-surface with new substrate and put her back in the enclosure. Feed her as usual and enjoy having her as your pet tarantula.

 

[flamekitty84]

yeah you are probably right.
I am not experienced enough, or at all really, to be able to deal with the eggs even if they were fertile

do mature females always lay eggs even if they haven't mated?
just curious if I should expect this from any of my other females

 

[cold blood]

do mature females always lay eggs even if they haven't mated?
just curious if I should expect this from any of my other females

Always...certainly not, and its not really "to be expected", but it DOES happen from time to time.

 

[Ellenantula]

Agreed with other comments. I can see why she would recoup the nutrients if infertile eggs (or even fertile eggs if she felt the environment wasn't conducive to their development).

I doubt they were fertile though. I'd let her eat her fill, then clean up the substrate mess.

 

[Angel Minkov]

She has a blockage on one of her web-producing glands. Even if they were infertile, if her glands were okay, she most likely would've made the sac and eaten it later or the eggs would simply have shriveled and gone dark.

 

[Exoskeleton Invertebrates]

The good thing about your ordeal is that now you somewhat know what is like for a female to lay her eggs. Even though she did not do a good job of her building her nest wether it was fertile or not you get the idea. For the future remember the type of condition your spider is in now that she was able to lay her egg sac, for instance temperature, humid condition etc. this will help you in the future if you decide to ever mate and breed your own male and female tarantulas.

So take some notes and prepare yourself for this to occur again. Specially if you end up purchasing a wild caught female and all of the sudden "bang" I have an egg sac.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

 

[flamekitty84]

alright guys so now I'm kinda concerned. I left her be to clean up the eggs and I looked in tonight and she has made a sac out of the webbing and is hovering over it like you would expect a mother with viable eggs to be
is she just really confused or is it possible that she does have eggs in there?
I don't want to make a task of removing her and cleaning up her enclosure if she is in the middle of being a responsible mother lol

 

[Exoskeleton Invertebrates]

alright guys so now I'm kinda concerned. I left her be to clean up the eggs and I looked in tonight and she has made a sac out of the webbing and is hovering over it like you would expect a mother with viable eggs to be
is she just really confused or is it possible that she does have eggs in there?
I don't want to make a task of removing her and cleaning up her enclosure if she is in the middle of being a responsible mother lol

Post photo please and leave her alone.

 

[flamekitty84]

I'm not sure I can get a good enough photo without disturbing her by taking her off the shelf and opening the lid

I keep my tarantulas in sterilite containers and they're not exactly see-through

 

[flamekitty84]

Decided to get some pics of the momma while I had the lid off to refill her water...

she is guarding this thing like her life depends on it, but I'm not even sure there's anything in it
it's so messy that I couldn't imagine anything living in there
any ideas?

 

[Ellenantula]

If it were me and my T, whether I considered the sac a dud or not; I would let her keep it a month (unless I could see or smell an issue). Originally in this post, it seemed she had made a right mess of things, but now it appears that she cleaned up her own mess by making a sac anyway. Hopefully, if the eggs are duds, they will simply desiccate and cause no issues (draw no pests/parasites).

At this point, since I doubt the sac is good, I suppose my main concern is keeping enclosure dry and avoiding the sac drawing any sort of infestation.