Avicularia sp. slings hard to care for?

Ok spidey pals, here's the deal...

a few months ago I decided I *had* to have a pet tarantula, so I checked the internet to see what I could find on care, sexing, etc. In the process I found many lovely pics of Avicularia versicolor and a caresheet at petbugs.com that pretty much said these guys are OK for beginners as long as you're "diligent" or "careful" or somesuch word, but didn't give a lot of info as to why or what one would need to be careful about.

So of course, I immediately ordered 2 babies from a vendor who had a post on the petbugs classified board...got one as a freebie, now I have 3 A. versicolor slings that have been in my care for about 6 weeks. 2 of them have molted once, one has molted 2x. I have them in betta cups w/many holes punched in the lid w/a pushpin, for substrate I have a mix of peat moss, perlite, and vermiculite (had it handy and it seemed to be OK based on what I'd read).

Anyway, nothing too traumatic has happened and they seem to be doing ok to just fine. In the meantime I'm on a newsgroup and one of the members posted a message saying that Avicularia slings are notoriously difficult to raise. This was a response to another member's posting re: problem w/her Avic sling.

I've asked him specifically what he means, but I wanted to get some more feedback from another source. Are these guys harder than average to raise to maturity? What makes them difficult to keep? What should I look out for?

PLEASE TELL ME MY BABIES AIN'T GON' DIE!!!

Um...thanks for any info you have...

They have a tendency to curl up dead for no apparent reason, at least versicolors. (Meaning: It isn't unheard of).
All Avic slings seem to be kind of hard to feed, at least in my experience. They will not touch living crickets or roaches, but will take gore half of the times I give it to them.

They are not difficult to rase but do tend to die every now and again for no apparent reason. I hade some metallica slings just curl up one day for no reason.

Just supply them with plenty of water and make sure they are well ventalated. Don't put versicolour slings in large tanks untill they are big enough.

A pet store not far from me had some in and they put the slings in a huge tank they were doing fine when they ere in the smaller pots but in the larger tank they all just died. Due to stress or just one of those things I don't know but it was pretty odd. Mind you though I don't know who sold them to them but they were charging £75 for them what a rip off.

Avicularia spp are not hard to raise the key factor is indeed ventilation the thing I have notice with many apparent deaths are due to over keeping I.e spraying daily consistent messing with your spiderling! these spp do fine on there own humidity is not a key factor water is not a key factor as I have found most Avic spiderlings will take all the nourishment they need from the food they consume the best way to raise avics is micro film pots and tissue paper substrate dribble and I mean dribble a tiny amount of water down the side of the micro film pot once a week and the spiderling will do just fine contrary to what Vys said about Avic spiderlings not being good feeders in my esp. with many spp of Avicularia and breedings Avic spiderlings will take food up to twice there size and have a voracious appetite if they haven't sorry they are being kept correctly.

hope this helps

Allso I thought I'd add this too. IMO I think that alot of misterious slings death could alos be due to that in captive breedings most of the slings survive and are not killed of or eaten like in the wild. So alot of the runt's and weakings which would normally Die are given a chance to live and sometimes things can get too much for them so they just die. This may not be true I'm just speculating here.

I totally agree with G wright on that one out of my lastest clutch of A versicolor only 82 made it out of 120 odd so natural selection is also a key factor.That should be taken into consideration

Thanks for the good info! Mine have been taking live food without a problem. I've been lucky enough to be standing nearby checking on other stuff when they've pounced on an unwary cricket and started chomping!

They're kept individually in 4 oz cups w/holes in the lids, and judging between the holes in the lid of the vials they came in, and the pics of vials from the webpage of someone who seems to breed regularly I'd say they have plenty of ventilation in that regard.

I was doing a misting with the plant sprayer (bottled water, kept specifically for them) about every other day. For the past 3 weeks or so I've cut back on the misting and I've given them little milk jug caps with water in them. They didn't have water "bowls" before based on some misinformation I read when I was originally setting them up.

Here's to hoping I don't have any "runts or weaklings".

Setup for A. avic slings...

I might end up making this a new thread if I don't get many replies but I was just wondering what the best setup for A. avic slings would be. Would it be okay to use pieces of cut up peat pots for them to climb on? If not, what do you guys use? (or do you use nothing, and raise them like terrestrials until a certain size?)

Thanks!

I buy silk ivy strands at WalMart, rinse well, then cut to the sizes and lengths I need. If the leaves are too large, I trim them smaller.

they could create a new medical term "SADS" sudden Avic. death syndrome

I couldn't keep an Avic alive in a cup no matter what I tried. After 3 versicolors died, I was ready to give up but I tried a new container. Ever since then, they're doing great! They even web like crazy and all of them have no trouble taking live crickets.




I use small pieces of cork bark hot glued to the sides with a bit of moss and fake plants. I make sure the cork bark is fairly close to the bottom/substrate but not touching so the sling can climb back up easier. They all hang off the bark and snatch crickets as they walk by. Really cool
As soon as I can make another one, I'm going to transfer my purpurea to the same kind of enclosure.

is there a point before maturity where you can assume you're "home free"?

I'm curious Diane, how big (LS) were yours when they died before? Is webbing a particularly good sign? Mine have always had lovely silk tube hammock things strung up in their homes...

I'm curious Diane, how big (LS) were yours when they died before? Is webbing a particularly good sign? Mine have always had lovely silk tube hammock things strung up in their homes...

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All of the slings that died were 1" or slightly smaller. All of them didn't web or webbed very little so when my little guys(or girls) started webbing up the new enclosure, I was very happy! I don't know why they died since I tried to keep the substrate humid and I always removed food if it wasn't eaten(which was daily). In the new enclosure, they just seemed to take to it quite readily. Both of them explored the new area immediately and within hours had quite a large amount of webbing on the inside.
Since my purpurea is so small (about 1/2") I want to wait till it molts before I move it but I'm so concerned about it being in the vial. I made a new enclosure for it but the holes are abit large for it's size and I don't want it escaping so it'll have to wait till it's larger.

I've got a similar setup to Diane S, with little acrylic containers I got a the Container store. My very first spiders were 3 A. metallicas, 2 A. versicolors and 3 P. irminias. Since then I've gotten a lot more avic slings, and I've only lost one ever. Definitely I'd agree that ventilation is the key; I just make a boatload of little holes in the acrylic with a dremel tool, put in a little substrate and a "branch" (Some log looking things I found at a pet store meant for hamsters to chew on) and wha-la! Instant avic sling home (Be careful though you don't drill the holes too big, trust me on that one!). I've got mine turned the other way with the "lid" part at the top- the avics will web up in there and I can just pop the top off, spider and all and set it down and maintain the rest of the cage without fear the sling will bolt out.
Good luck!

My avic Mettalica is a GREAT eater. Crickets barely touches the ground. But yes, versicolor may be hard to raise. Mettalica is much easier
-King Sparta

11 years late to this party:wink:

What is it with people commenting on old threads lately???

lalberts9310 said:

What is it with people commenting on old threads lately???

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He's from Sparta what do you expect... There such Neanderthals... Lols

cold blood said:

11 years late to this party:wink:

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It's alliiiiveeeeee
It's aliiiveeeee!!!!

assidreemz said:

It's alliiiiveeeeee
It's aliiiveeeee!!!!

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It's a zombie thread this..