Heteropoda venatoria w/ sac, questions [Archive]

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maxident213

01-28-2008, 09:32 PM

My H. venatoria has been working on a sac for about two weeks now. I've read all the threads I can find on the care of spiderlings but I still have a few questions, should this sac turn out to be viable. (She was never mated in my care, but I know that they can produce multiple sacs off a mating). I've never had an eggsac to deal with before so a lot of this will be new to me.

- Separating slings: should this be done right away, once they start emerging from the sac? I have lots of vials at the ready. I am a little sketchy about working around the mother (fast as lightning), so my plan is to open up her enclosure in the bathtub when the slings start emerging, cup her, and divide up the slings from there. Any problems with this?

- Can H. venatoria climb the walls of a bathtub? :D My main concern is Mom escaping during all this and me not being able to catch her.

- People seem to recommend starting the slings on fruit flies. Fruit flies are hard to come by in the middle of winter in Canada. Has anyone had luck feeding the newborn slings on cricket parts? I am hoping to be able to start them on crushed pinheads or legs.

- Are the spiderlings just as fast as the adults? I am a little concerned that they might be bolting out every time I open a vial to feed or water.

That's it for my first batch of questions, if anyone can provide any answers, I would sure appreciate it. Any additional info or advice is of course welcome. Thanks very much. :)

dragontears

01-29-2008, 10:19 PM

your idea of separating the slings is exactly what I did. It worked well. Cupping the female isn't as bad as you think...as soon as the babies are done emerging from the sac (this may take several days), she will drop the sac and will want food. Feed her and she will be preoccupied as you cup her. Make sure that whatever enclosure the female is in is baby proof...otherwise you'll have babies everywhere.

H. venatoria can climb bathtub walls, but it slows the babies down a whole lot. I've never had my female loose in the bathtub, so I'm not sure if it slows her down or not.

You can keep the babies in individual cups or you can put them in community groups. They will cannibalize each other if not given enough food. It mostly depends on you...if you want to deal with feeding hundreds of individual babies, or are wanting to try to sell them individually, then separate them. Otherwise, keeping them together will be easier to feed them and it will cull down the numbers to a managable amount.

I only tried feeding fruit flies when they were little, so I'm not sure about the insect body parts as food.

The spiderlings are definitely fast and will escape if you let them. If you put them in community groups, keep the groups either smallish (10-15 per group) or keep them in decent sized containers so when they all bolt in different directions, they are still managable.

maxident213

01-29-2008, 11:21 PM

Hey, thanks very much! :) I'm a little worried now though - she dropped the sac on the ground this morning and hasn't picked it up again. :( I gave her a light misting and she has been in the darkest, most quiet part of the room since she made the sac, so I'm hoping she picks it up again.... but I'm under the impression that dropping it is a bad sign.... right? :o

dragontears

01-30-2008, 12:37 AM

My girl dropped a couple sacs and that usually meant that they were infertile or bad. A couple times she would put the sac down to clean her legs or something, but she never moved away from the sac and the slightest disturbance would make her pick it up again. It doesn't sound like her sac is good. Sorry. :(

maxident213

01-30-2008, 01:10 AM

dragontears

01-30-2008, 09:43 PM

It's possible she'll lay another one. Keep her warm and humid and feed her and see what happens.