Molting Question....

Chris V

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Feb 7, 2004
Messages
207
How often can a Tarantula molt? My sub-adult curly molted on 3/28/04 and I came home to find her already spun a bed of web and flipped onto her back (shes molting as I type). Ill be sure to get some good pix!

Second question: Can a tramatic event or stress throw a "T" into pre-molt?
She was just fine and I changed her substrate about a month ago. It was just after that she stopped eating and started reclusing into the corners of her tank..
Also, I had a little incident with my Cyclosternum fasciatum about 4 weeks ago . I was feeding and a pin-head jumped out, in my attempt to capture the pinhead I accidently knocked the vial containing the T off the table onto the carpet. The vial did about 4 flips before it hit the floor and bounced twice. She was ok but has since refused to eat. It molted two days ago.
Coincidence? You tell me..
 

RazorRipley

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 13, 2003
Messages
333
Its different for all species... but heres some general rules to follow.... A baby can molt every 3-4 weeks at first, a juvenile, might every other month. With every molt, the wait till the next becomes longer. The male reaches a final molt, and dies after that, while, a female molts once a year as an adult. All my adult females pretty much stay on schedule, down to the month.
 

Bloodletting

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 29, 2003
Messages
358
I keep track of all my molts. I keep them glued to paper and dated. I can see the molts, track dates and pretty much predict when the next molt will be. for some at least.

To your question. I have a b. vagans that had a bad molt. I had to remove the rest of the molt from the abdomen with vasoline, it took about a day to loosen it and peel it off. The abdomen looked like the rings of a tree. Within the month, it had another molt. It should have been several months but it quickly molted again. I am not sure if I started a thread on this or commented elsewhere but t's will have a molt sooner if there is damage or a previous bad molt. I thought that was the case but it was backed up by others in thread.
 
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