What happened to my pink toe tarantula’s eggs

Kristina92

Arachnopeon
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Oct 10, 2022
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I pulled her egg sac she has been guarding at 30 days. I noticed she stopped caring for it about day 28-29. When I opened it they were clumped together, brownish in color, and really hard. Does that mean the eggs were infertile the entire time or they just dried out?

Backstory: I got her a couple months before she laid the eggs from petsmart. I asked them and they said they are not wild caught. Every where I read said they usually are or the employees are not aware of how they are kept before arriving to the store. I treated it as if it were fertile.
Just wanted to get some insight on it. See if I should do anything different and up the moisture in the cage next time if I decide to breed her.
 

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Liquifin

Arachnoking
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Those eggs are not good and you can throw them out or get rid of them. It's hard to know if they were fertile or not as those eggs are not good and are dried up. As for getting a tarantula from a chain petstore is most likely not a good thing. And I would not trust them as they are not knowledgeable people when it comes to tarantulas.

Breeding the common pink toe (A. Avic M1) is a hard thing to deal with as not many people will take them if you do produce slings. They are very saturated in the USA tarantula market and finding homes for them is very difficult because there are a lot of wild caught imports that come in very frequently. An example is the pink toe you have currently.
 

cold blood

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I pulled her egg sac she has been guarding at 30 days. I noticed she stopped caring for it about day 28-29. When I opened it they were clumped together, brownish in color, and really hard. Does that mean the eggs were infertile the entire time or they just dried out?
Generally a t knows when things have gone bad and will just leave it and walk away....on rare occasion the issue will be minor and most of the sac can be fine, for this reason, I will always take and open any sac right away when the mom stops caring for it for any appreciable amount of time (they can wander away from time to time), but its not all that common for them to do so. By opening it right away you can save any good-looking eggs from quickly dying as the eggs around them rot.

: I got her a couple months before she laid the eggs from petsmart. I asked them and they said they are not wild caught. Every where I read said they usually are or the employees are not aware of how they are kept before arriving to the store.
It laying a sac doesnt automatically indicate it was WC, young females can certainly drop phantom sacs (these would contain actual eggs, but could not have been fertilized) .....but there is always some need in hobby breeding for "fresh" genes to add to the health of the breeding population.

. I treated it as if it were fertile.
As one should do with any egg sac that you dont know for sure its past recent history.
See if I should do anything different and up the moisture in the cage next time if I decide to breed her.
Yes....remove the water dish....females can and often will, dunk egg sacs, thus destroying the entire thing....and this is a time to keep the soil damp and the temps from dropping too far.
not many people will take them if you do produce slings.
That's never been my experience...while they are cheap and wont bring much monetary value, they are easily the species I am asked about most often at shows.....I have an M1 and M6 I am hoping to see drop sacs this spring. :)
 
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