egg sacks

[Nicola Dolby]

Yesterday morning I checked in on one of my tarantulas who had been sitting on an egg sack for about 2 months. She has abandoned it and not sure what to do I moved her into a petpal and the egg sack into an incubator. I checked the incubator this morning and to be blunt, it smells. Either some or all of the spiderlings are dead, I'm sure of that, but I'm not sure if I should open the sack up. If some are alive will this harm them, if yes then how am I to know either way? Advice appreciated please. The species is Euathlus vulpinus

[Ray Gabriel]

Nicola

go onto the Tarantula store website and find the thread recent thread by Richard Gallon regarding artificial incubation,

you will need to open the sac asap

Ray

[Nicola Dolby]

egg sack

Hi Ray,
yes I've done that, unfortunately they were all dead. I know what I did wrong, basically the environment was too dry and warm, though I didn't have time to get her sorted out when I bought her before she laid the sack. The other pregnant female I have (P. miranda) hasn't laid her sack yet, but she is in a cork bark tube in a tank with correct temp and humidity. I tried Richard's setup for an incubator but it was too late, still I'll know what to do next time. The female is fine, although as you know my male passed away the week before Christmas. Just out of curiosity, how long should I leave her before I introduce her to another male?
Thanks

[Ray Gabriel]

Sorry to hear the sac was bad

what did you find? black eggs, eggs with legs, spiderlings?

sometimes they are not very mobile,

but the smell should give it away.

You could try mating her again asap, and see what happens, but we dont know the "triggers" to get the eggsac, it might have been the cold spell in the plane comming here, the sudden rise in temp, humidity etc.

What we do know is that they were imported in November? our autum thier spring, and many of the species produced eggsacs not long after being bought, there were also males imported so maybe this is thier breeding season, (maybe your female had not been mated and produced the eggsac on response to the "trigger"?), the next piece of information we need is when the females moult, and then we can have a look at some climatic data.

From this we can work out the species breeding season so we can reallt tell when is the next time to mate them, which could be next November or possibly April/May.

Have a read of The Tarantula by Bearg it explains about the seasoning of males how some mate before winter and others mature after winter to mate any of the females which did not mate or moulted during the winter period.

Ray

[Ray Gabriel]

Sorry to hear the sac was bad

what did you find? black eggs, eggs with legs, spiderlings?

sometimes they are not very mobile,

but the smell should give it away.

You could try mating her again asap, and see what happens, but we dont know the "triggers" to get the eggsac, it might have been the cold spell in the plane comming here, the sudden rise in temp, humidity etc.

What we do know is that they were imported in November? our autum thier spring, and many of the species produced eggsacs not long after being bought, there were also males imported so maybe this is thier breeding season, (maybe your female had not been mated and produced the eggsac on response to the "trigger"?), the next piece of information we need is when the females moult, and then we can have a look at some climatic data.

From this we can work out the species breeding season so we can reallt tell when is the next time to mate them, which could be next November or possibly April/May.

Have a read of The Tarantula by Bearg it explains about the seasoning of males how some mate before winter and others mature after winter to mate any of the females which did not mate or moulted during the winter period.

Ray

[Adam Smith]

Ive found that breeding is not as straight forward as having the male and female, though i read countless articles on breeding there can be many things that happen not documented as each case could be completely different. I have an adult female T prurien and still not sure if she is gravid or just full from the male. It was about November I introduced the male to the female so how long would egg sac production take from mating. Sorry to hijack the thread just as the subejct of sac popped up looking for some ideas. I cant seem to find the egg sac my T truculentus laid she covered the sac in dirt and held on to it one day, go away for new year come back and cant see any sac as it was covered in substrate so difficult to notice. Im unsure whether shes eaten the egg sac or buried it which is the first I have heard of.

[Nicola Dolby]

egg sac

When I opened up the sack there were loads of tiny black spiders in there, about 2mm legspan. I know very little about breeding, Which is why I planned with the other pregnant female to leave her in her tank with the sack. The humidity and temperature are perfect and she has a bark tube which she's very happy living in. However if I'm going to start having to introduce 'seasons' to the females microclimates then I have a lot of reading to do. Anyone got a spare male E. vulpinus?