What about "neutral ground" mating?

[Cirith Ungol]

Would it work to put two T's into a new tank in cups, let them calm down and then release them upon eachother for mating?

If T's are calmer off territory, would a neutral ground mating work or would they go berzerk instead?

 

[krtrman]

i used a breeding tank twice. the matings seemed to go well. i have not gotten an eggsac from either mating. one female molted and i am still waiting for the other to do something. i put the female in first and let her roam a bit, then introduced the male after a few moments. the male picked up on the feamles webbing and then they went at it. i don't know if i just got lucky or what...just wanted to give you my 2 cents.

 

[Cirith Ungol]

And thanks for that! Interesting!

 

[wicked]

I remember a post a year or so ago. The people were stuck in a snow storm after purchasing some new Ts so they decided to let their rosehair pair get busy on the hotel room bed. It was complete with pictures too. Priceless thread, but I can't find it. The search function hates me today.:wall:

 

[DanHalen]

Worked for me and a pair of T Apophysis

 

[cacoseraph]

i think that there is going to be some species that will tend to bone down where ever and when ever... obt, say. then some species will need water from the creek they used to live by flowing through their cage to bone down. and there will be individual variation in each species, of course

also, i don't necesarily think a t is calmer off territory. i think they have no good place to run to and keep their options open. (in a nonsentient manner, of course). home is where the heart is for humans... but home is where the big bad world can't get you for t's

and consider what takes place in nature. typically the female has a very well established home and the male wanders to it and initiates the mating game.

i expect some species are like, "horny" enough that neutral ground would work, but i also imagine there are plenty of species that are nervous/finicky enough that you need to establish the female in a VERY nice cage and then introduce the male

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Very interesting thoughts there caco!

What prompted me to this question is that I had (like many others) a rosea mating go mortally bad. I wonder if it would have helped to put them somewhere neutral, since roseas are so notorious for matings gone bad. But I put the q in a more general framwork anyway.

 

[cacoseraph]

i had my rosea in a well established cage and just seperated out 173 slings a couple weeks ago. i'm going to try an A. seemani in a similar set up once my male has finished hardening and they both have eaten to capacitance.

i'll try to remember to post here, and for sure i'll make a breeding report

edit:
oh, and by secure good caging i mean that my rosea lives in a big ol' burrow she dug for herself and my seemani lives in a pretty sweet pre-built burrow that i made for her. the seemani has been in the same cage for almost two years and used the borrow continuously for the last year. she experimented with digging her own burrow but my susbtrate collapsed over ~6 months or so, so she moved back into the prebuilt.

if you are curious i could post some pics of my cages

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Yeah, please go ahead!

 

[cacoseraph]

ok, here is my seemani's house. she's been in the same cage with the same substrate for around 2 years now. her built in burrow is a a plastic jar tilted at about 30* from how it would normally sit.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b287/cacoseraph/tarantula/cage/A_seemani_Home2.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b287/cacoseraph/tarantula/cage/A_seemani_Home3.jpg


my roseas cage is a little harder to see what is going on. that is a medium kritter keeper inside of a giant kritter keeper. the medium was the rosea's home for a while, and she lived in a burrow she made under a coconut shell half. originally my intention was that she would have lots of room to make an eggsac and then live in her nice safe coconut burrow... but she had other ideas. she burrowed under the whole medium cage and made a good size room where she made the eggsac and incubated it for a while (i'm not quite sure when she made the sac).
here is the cage as it is while she lives in it

and the giant cage with the medium cage lifted out, while i was stealing the eggsac. i squirted the rosea with some water and she dropped the eggsac and ran. you can see the eggsac in the her exposed burrow

shiver me timbers, i just noticed i didn't spell the bleedin names of the pics right... arrrr!

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Interesting how the rosea tank ended up being.

 

[Snipes]

I remember a post a year or so ago. The people were stuck in a snow storm after purchasing some new Ts so they decided to let their rosehair pair get busy on the hotel room bed. It was complete with pictures too. Priceless thread, but I can't find it. The search function hates me today.:wall:

I think it was Maren (Varden) because of here
http://www.tarantularanch.com/breeding.htm
I was so happy to see that, i remember the thread too and thought it was the coolest thing.

 

[cacoseraph]

Interesting how the rosea tank ended up being.

the cool thing about it is that the medium cage can't slide down anymore, so the main burrow chamber will never collapse. the enterance tube is heavily webbed enough i expect it will last a long time too. so that rosea might still be in the same cage with the same substrate in a few years when i might feel like dealing with a crapload of baby rosea again heh

 

[Steve Nunn]

Hi,
Problems in aggressive mating seems to be mostly a captive issue (not always). I have found with heavy silkers that the male when introduced will often stress right out, not knowing where the female is, only that he's so close she could nail him I bypass that problem by removing any extra silk around the enclosure, but remaining careful to keep enough silk at the entrance to the hide that he knows roughly where she is. Doing this seems to give the males more confidence.

In females that don't silk much, particularly with rosies (as far as I understand them), they will still lay down silk with pheromones around the entire enclosure. The male hits this and freezes usually. In the wild this is never a concern, the only silk to be found is at a burrow entrance, so the location issue is easy for the male.

Putting the spiders onto neutral territory may decrease this risk, but it also takes away all pheromone scent that is usually present around a mature females burrow. This means the male may not detect the female until he bumps into her, which could be good or bad.

Anyhow, try pulling all the silk around the outer enclosure out, and only leave some silk at the hide entrance, this might help, works for me

Steve

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Putting the spiders onto neutral territory may decrease this risk, but it also takes away all pheromone scent that is usually present around a mature females burrow. This means the male may not detect the female until he bumps into her, which could be good or bad.

Ah! An idea! *bing!*

If I'd put both T's into a neutral tank, I could put the female in a larger "inside box" than the male, and let them both sit there for about 6-12 hours so the female has the time to web up the bottom inside her box. That would leave a limited patch of webbing.

But here's the problem with it: Is any patch of webbing automatically registered as "My friggin personal territory - and if you ever come here, T-god help you!", or is after 6-12 hours still the territory quite neutral?

I wonder if that can be answered

 

[Sarah.S]

Mmmmm I think the webbing is not mine leave alone at all costs which ever way it is done its more this is where I live be careful if you come near me. As for mutral mating grounds I have found with most of mine they seem to prefer an be less stressed out if I introduce the male to the females tank. I have a feeling that it is very much an individual pairs choice and you just have to try a few different things till you hit on what suits that pair. Even my OBT and other easy to mate and normally randy pairs have ended up perfering to do the deed in the females tank with the male intorduced.

 

[pamphobeteus]

You should ALWAYS introduce the male into the females tank. Not the female in the males tank. In the wild the female would live in and near her burrow, and the matured males will stray around to look for those female burrows.