When should I try to breed her?

[esmoot]

I have a Avicularia laeta female that I thought was still immature. I was checking on her today and noticed she had an egg sack. Of course infertile. I was wondering when I should try to breed her.
I took her egg sack away and she is still very plump for her sp. How long should I wait?

I have 3 mature males right now and one mature female that I will breed very soon.

Thaks for the input.

Eric

 

[MrDeranged]

Eric,

This probably isn't going to help much, but I figured any info is something. There was a theory going around on the yahoo groups a while back that many T's out there are breedable at much smaller sizes than previously thought.

While this means that it's great and stuff can be bred earlier, they were saying that if you breed them early, they tend to have smaller sacks from then on than if you wait till they were bigger to start breeding.

So how does this affect your situation:

Well, you can breed the small female now and hope for a sac that, if the theory is right, will be small and then expect small sacs from then on with that female. You also don't have to waste a male.

Or, you can hold on to the young female and wait for the next batch of laeta to come through and breed her then when she's put a little more size on and hopefully get a really nice sac.

I know that probably doesn't help much, but I figured it would give you some food for thought...

Scott

 

[esmoot]

Thanks. Is the theory saying that the females growth would halt after breeding? Could be.

 

[MrDeranged]

Nope, nothing about the actual specimens growth after breeding. Just that females bred when small generally will have smaller sacs than a female that was larger when she was first bred.

Scott

 

[esmoot]

Ok. The post says if you breed them early, they tend to have smaller sacks from then on. So even though the t will continue to grow, she will continue to have smaller egg sacks. Correct?

 

[MrDeranged]

That's it in a nutshell. I believe that this was all on the Arachnid World group on yahoo a few months ago. Maybe one of the other members from there can join in and say if I'm remembering this right....

Scott

 

[esmoot]

Ok. Thanks for the help Scott. I'll wait until her next molt for breeding.

Eric