Hello Spiderfolks!, I'm new here so I don't know if anyone can answer my question, but here it is.........
I've been keeping spiders for 18 months now and really enjoy the hobby, but I now have a problem that I can't find the answer for.
I had to go away for a few days to go to a funeral, and when I got back I found 1 of the heatpads on my tanks had failed. The digital thermometer recorded a dip to just 3 centigrade and it could of been at that for 2 days.
The spider is an adult female Columbian Giant (Megaphobema Robustum) of unknown age as I bought her as an adult. I extracted her from her burrow and she appeared dead. I put her in a smaller box with some of her usual substrate, made it moist, and put her on a new heatpad to warm up. I was happy to see small movements after about 6 hours and she got more animated after about 24 hours.
However, she does not seem to have escaped unscathed. She appears paralysed in several of her legs, cannot raise her body off the ground and cannot move about. She is lively when I try and present a half-dead cricket to her and flails around with her legs, but cannot manipulate the cricket into her mouth parts. It appears she can drink when I place her near her water dish.
Any advise on how to care for her, and any other comments would be most welcome.
Thanks
Croin
I've been keeping spiders for 18 months now and really enjoy the hobby, but I now have a problem that I can't find the answer for.
I had to go away for a few days to go to a funeral, and when I got back I found 1 of the heatpads on my tanks had failed. The digital thermometer recorded a dip to just 3 centigrade and it could of been at that for 2 days.
The spider is an adult female Columbian Giant (Megaphobema Robustum) of unknown age as I bought her as an adult. I extracted her from her burrow and she appeared dead. I put her in a smaller box with some of her usual substrate, made it moist, and put her on a new heatpad to warm up. I was happy to see small movements after about 6 hours and she got more animated after about 24 hours.
However, she does not seem to have escaped unscathed. She appears paralysed in several of her legs, cannot raise her body off the ground and cannot move about. She is lively when I try and present a half-dead cricket to her and flails around with her legs, but cannot manipulate the cricket into her mouth parts. It appears she can drink when I place her near her water dish.
Any advise on how to care for her, and any other comments would be most welcome.
Thanks
Croin