Death curl

What would you do?

  • Let him die naturally?

    Votes: 42 67.7%
  • Put him out of his misery?

    Votes: 5 8.1%
  • Other.

    Votes: 15 24.2%

  • Total voters
    62
  • Poll closed .

jbrd

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Our male A.avic is in the death curl position. Would it be better to put him out of his misery now to ease his pain or just let him die naturally?
 

Malhavoc's

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I'm assuming adult male correct? I vote other. I would attempt to see if rehydrating him brings him out of it. If not I'd let him go naturaly as I'm not sure exactly what a tarantula would feel at that point in life..perhaps its just like us doseing off at old age?
 

taorchard1987

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Malhavoc's said:
I'm assuming adult male correct? I vote other. I would attempt to see if rehydrating him brings him out of it. If not I'd let him go naturaly as I'm not sure exactly what a tarantula would feel at that point in life..perhaps its just like us doseing off at old age?

I AGREE WITH THAT
 

Code Monkey

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I have never once put a tarantula "out of its misery". Ts lack a nervous system complex enough to suffer or even conceptually feel pain in a way that should invoke empathy from us. I've had a fair number of males go of old age over the years and they all just stop one day and that's the end of it.
 

becca81

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SpiderDork said:
Here is a link to a short newspaper article in which Norwegian scientist determined that invertebrates do not feel pain.
Interesting.

However, the article mentions at one point that invertebrates do not feel pain, but at another point Dr. Fraser says that it doesn't prove that they don't feel pain - just that they work differently. Sounds inconclusive, but maybe I'm reading it wrong.
 

Gesticulator

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The articles makes me believe that invertebrates are incapable of feeling pain, as we know it bec the nervous systems are too simple. That being said, there is no "misery" to put the spider out of. I would just let it be and make sure it's dead before doing anything. let nature take it's course.
 
Last edited:

Code Monkey

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becca81 said:
Interesting.

However, the article mentions at one point that invertebrates do not feel pain, but at another point Dr. Fraser says that it doesn't prove that they don't feel pain - just that they work differently. Sounds inconclusive, but maybe I'm reading it wrong.
Not so much reading it wrongly, but rather reading too much into an issue of evidence. We can conclusively show that it's impossible for the vast majority of invertebrates to conceptually feel pain in the same way as a vertebrate, which is what the article addresses. However, successfully demonstrating that does not 100.0% rule out there might not be some form of limited awareness that allows them a *feeling* of pain using a sort of nervous system architecture we are somehow ignorant of, but I'd put that more in the category of covering their arses with the animal rights groups rather than any sort of doubt about the issue.

A huge percentage of what we know about the nervous system and how it functions was discovered using invertebrates because there is so much similarity between what makes invertebrates and vertebrates work. While not impossible, it is a very, very, very slim chance that there would be something completely hidden within their nervous system that defies all empirical testing. In other words, if something like a tarantula is capable of suffering, there's no anatomical or physiological indicators , and more importantly, no way to behaviourally detect this suffering - its feeling of pain would be a closed box issue.
 

becca81

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Code Monkey said:
. but I'd put that more in the category of covering their arses with the animal rights groups rather than any sort of doubt about the issue.
I was thinking it may be something along these lines. ;)

When I worked for Red Lobster I noticed there the instinctual defensiveness that the lobsters showed when I picked them up out of the water seemed to be less than the defensiveness shown when they were placed in a pot of boiling water or cut open (depending on how it was being prepared).
 

Tony

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Do you have anything that is hungry? Not to be crude, but it could make the ultimate sacrifice...
T
 

jbrd

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SpiderDork said:
Here is a link to a short newspaper article in which Norwegian scientist determined that invertebrates do not feel pain. The study was initially started to determine if lobsters felt pain. The article does not go into depth about the study but I'm sure a little research on the web would reveal specifics for those interested.

http://www.hindu.com/seta/2005/03/03/stories/2005030301751500.htm
very interesting article, it was very interesting to say the least. Helps to put my mind at ease that it may be possible that he is not suffering.
 

jbrd

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tony said:
Do you have anything that is hungry? Not to be crude, but it could make the ultimate sacrifice...
T
I do have a seven inch T.blondi. :? What do you all think about feeding him to the blondi?
 

Venom

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Yeah, really! That seems the most logical approach.

"My T is dying, should I kill it?" --whatever happened to trying to save it??
 

ORION_DV8

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Its not that i do not condone the euthenasia option, but sometimes you CAN help. I had an A. avic go into a pre-death curl state basically dead, legs curled a bit, but still moving ever so slightly i put it in a ICU over night and next day he was an avic again, all bouncing and flitting about his enclosure the way they do.
Cheers
ORION
 

Code Monkey

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Gesticulator said:
How's it doing??? Is it alive?? Have you tried an ICU???
It's a mature male, it IS going to die. You can stick it in an ICU, you can "force-feed" it pureed roach&cricket shakes, you can build a custom pyramid power "dome" for your spider room, it's still going to die. You can't save a mature male from what, by all appearances, is an effect of "scheduled maintenance".

The other day I had a old guy die sitting on the cork bark in the same position as he'd hung out in on numerous occasions. This same spider was eating and drinking not a month ago, then last week, poof, pushing up maggots.

It's just the way it goes; thinking there's anything to be done to reverse the course (assuming food and water has been available regularly) is a waste of energy.
 

NYCspiderGuy

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Originally Posted by tony

Do you have anything that is hungry? Not to be crude, but it could make the ultimate sacrifice...

*********************

Tarantulas do odd things and I would personally not give up until sure it was over.
Seems like this could lead to a Renfield thing... keep feeding one to the other and ultimately consume the souls yourself? Sounds very
Nature-Channel to feed one to another as in the wild, but this is your house and they are your responsibility.
I will feed goldfish to my snake, but I'm not going to put fighting Bettas together just because they would fight in the wild. Dogfights next?(kidding)

Seriously though, Eric(or John... I forget) from E-Spiderworld suggested that in the rare case which called for it, that refrigeration/freezing would be a humane method of euthanasia. (Rare case meaning seriously flawed molt, serious injury, I suppose.) Never needed it.
Any opinions about that?
 

becca81

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NYCspiderGuy said:
Tarantulas do odd things and I would personally not give up until sure it was over.
Seems like this could lead to a Renfield thing... keep feeding one to the other and ultimately consume the souls yourself? Sounds very
Nature-Channel to feed one to another as in the wild, but this is your house and they are your responsibility.
I will feed goldfish to my snake, but I'm not going to put fighting Bettas together just because they would fight in the wild. Dogfights next?(kidding)
If it's a mature male - it's over. As CM pointed out, there is no changing the fact that it's going to die. It's just what happens.

I believe that jbyrd got this spider after it was already mature and he's had it for awhile. My guess is that it's at the end of its life.

I see nothing wrong with feeding it to another T or just letting it die naturally. There's really no need to stick it in the freezer.
 
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