A Diversipes question

Tfisher

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Should I leave the male in the cage when the female has her egg sac? They live with each other probably over 5 months. (Honestly they have been very compassionate with each other) Just want to know what everyone thinks.

Pull the male or keep him in?


Thanks :)
 

orionsXlight

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I've heard Avics can be communal, although I've never tried it myself. I'd honestly pull the guy out just in case but if they have lived together for five months he might be alright. As long as they have space and enough food for the two of them it might work. I'd love to here from someone who has more breeding/communal experience
 
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Poec54

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I've heard Avics can be communal, although I've never tried it myself.

Avics ARE NOT communal. They can last a little while but eventually it typically winds up to be a slaughter. Why in world would you even want to leave a male in a female's cage when she has a sac? Do you want it to hatch out?

No tarantulas are communal. Terrible term. A handful of species will tolerate each for varying lengths of time, Poecs being a classic example; even then they can start killing each after several years, as forum member Ceratogyrus found out with his groups. In the wild, when tensions flare, a spider can leave the common retreat before things escalate. Trapped in a cage, that's not possible and disagreements are much more likely to end in bloodshed.

The people who are fascinated with group cages are often the ones with the least experience. They're the last people who should be trying this.
 

Tfisher

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okay then I will remove him. I was thinking that the female may get stressed and eat the sac anyway. But on a different note, what about M. balfouri? Aren't they communal?
 

Poec54

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okay then I will remove him. I was thinking that the female may get stressed and eat the sac anyway. But on a different note, what about M. balfouri? Aren't they communal?
Female's are stressed as it is with a sac, and having a male underfoot only adds to that. There was no point in keeping him in there for so long; he could have easily been killed. Your female may shed and not lay a sac; if your male's been killed, you can't re-pair them. Instead of ensuring a sac, that could be the one thing that guarantees you won't get one. It serves no purpose to keep males and females cohabitating after an insertion. The pouches can only hold so much sperm. Although not common, adult males have occasionally killed adult females when left together for too long. Why take a pointless risk?

Balfouri have been reported to have killed each other in captivity. The artificial confines of a cage are unnatural and when things heat up, they can leave and let things cool down. But without that exit option, things can easily escalate and violence becomes a more likely outcome. We can't duplicate all the dynamics of them living in the wild; we don't even understand the dynamics. Some hog food and grow fast, others are intimidated and grow slow, there's vulnerability when molting, along with post-molt hunger that can drive violence, competition for space and territory, there's sex/breeding issues (Poecs tend to kill their male siblings as they mature), seasonality, etc. People cram them into a cage and expect them to get along.
 
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Tfisher

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Okay thank you for your info poec. I have removed the male. And my female diversipes has already laid her sac. I'm very excited :)

---------- Post added 08-03-2015 at 02:55 PM ----------

okay then I will remove him. I was thinking that the female may get stressed and eat the sac anyway. But on a different note, what about M. balfouri? Aren't they communal?
and what was ment by this was agreeing that the male would stress her out.
 
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