second male introduction -> no good

[Tom Forman]

Last week I tried my luck at breeding for the first time and in hindsight it could not have gone better.
No fussing about, some very good insertions and a smooth retreat.
The only thing I am unsure about is if he had any sperm in his pedipalps. I don't know what a sperm web looks like and I can't tell if he has been making one or not, as far as I can tell he hasn't.

I've heard they should always make a new one after a mating to recharge but I see no evidence of it...

Anyway, today I tried again and unfortunately it did not go that well.

I thought the mood the female was in would be the most important factor in a successful mating but I have changed my mind on that.

The male was not in the mood whatsoever to start with and I should not have tried in the first place under those circumstances. Last week he was in a wandering mood. This week, as soon as I approched him he curled up in a ball and stuck his bum up at me as high as he could. He was then very unwilling to move into my moving container and scrunched up even more.

Once mating took place I thought the female was particularly aggressive towards the male but I think it was cause he wasn't in the mood for it. It took him ages to sort out his legs and he kept twitching and tapping the females legs while doing this. He didn't do any of this last time.

He finally got into a halfway decent position but never did any insertions. The next thing I know he is halfway up the thermometer,scrambling for freedom with the female rearing up right behind him. It happened so fast I don't really know what happened but she was ready to eat him.

Fair play that he got away that fast.

Well who knows what went wrong. Maybe the female is gravid and won't have any more disturbances or the male was not feeling up to it.
I will leave them be and only try another mating if I see a sperm web one day.

[mary walters]

What species was it Tom??

Usually if a female is gravid from first mating she will not tolerate the male again, this is what I have found.

A sperm web is destroyed after the male has loaded his palps, whats left is like a stringy white web.

Hope this helps

[Nicola Dolby]

I understand the frustration Tom. So far in the past year this is my breeding record:

1. Tried breeding P. metallica, the male developed dyskenetic syndrome and died.
2. Tried breeding P. murinus, the breeding was so violent that the male died, the egg sac was bad and then the female died from breeding injuries.
3. Sent off an A. metallica for breeding and the b***h stole it! (legal case in process).
4. Tried breeding A. versicolor, bred successfully in Spain but no egg sac, went to Wales and the females weren't interested and then went to Sheffield and conked out (probably from exhaustion).
5. Tried breeding S. calceatum, bred successfully but still no egg sac.
6. Tried breeding P. subfusca but female not interested as too young so I sent him off for breeding loan (God knows what he's doing there).
7. Tried breeding P. miranda but he fell off the side of the tank at the critical moment. After that he was convinced she didn't like him so he would only try to breed when there was a pane of glass between them (I have the pictures to prove it too!). I sent him off for breeding and although he has bred there have been as yet no egg sacs.
8. Tried breeding H. lividium and the male would only breed whilst hanging from the underside of the tank lid (pervert!). The female soon got sick of this and started to ignore him. So I sent him off for breeding, he arrived safely and the promptly fell very ill. As soon as he was better and out of ICU he went into a females tank and she ate him!
9. I've sent out a P. striata but goodness knows what he's up to.
10. I got a mature male H. schmidit (yipee!) but before I could sent him out on breeding loan he developed abdominal alopecia so I won't breed him in case its a hereditory deseise.

Still, we live in hope.

[Tom Forman]

wow Nicola, that ain't a good record.

Thx for showing me. I did hear that only 10% of attempts in general succeed.
Maybe you should add an easy species to that list to make your record a bit better lol.

Mary, thx for the advice, I really hope the female is getting ready. I am breeding my newly aquired grammastola sp. concepcion.

There was a little white stuff in the male cage but I reckon it is only a bit of poo.

I'll keep you updated.

[Peter Lacey]

eeek Nicola, that's a lot of bad luck, and I thought 3 of my slings dieing was a disaster! I'm certainly not ready for breeding yet but I have let my L. klugi out to breed. I think at present she's sunning herself with some new friends, thinking about all her new neighbours.

Best of luck to both of you, I'm sure you'll keep us informed when success occurs.

[Louise~Nichols]

Ooooouch...Nicola...sympathies in particular for the ongoing legal proceedings...I hope it's a fair outcome for you when all is done and cleared up.

Tom...here's a pic of my *Macros* making a sperm web...fascinating process!! He was about 8 hours from start to finish...after laying underneath he then got on top of the hammock and started tickling around with his palps...the drops of sperm were visible through the web and I watched him gradually tidy everything up.

[Colin D Wilson]

And here's my little male Avicularia sp. making a sperm web

This has got to be one of the most awquard positions i've seen a spider attempt it.

I surely must have bought a retard !!!

yes the picture is the right way up !!!

[Peter Roach]

Nicola is your middle name Lucky ?

[Tom Forman]

Hello evry1,
time for an update. As I mentioned in a post yesterday, Eric has made a sperm web and he was in a wandering mood so I decided to give it another go.

As soon as I opened the female's cage she went into a corner and stayed there. I got Eric out fine and in to the females cage. Now it is really hard to tell if spiders can see or what they are sensing but I'm sure he could sense the female. He was pretty active and then just froze. He and she sat there. And sat there. Half an hour later I decide to get them moving by adding 2 roaches. I was getting really bored staring at them by this time... Male still didn't budge but female caught one of the roaches. At this point the male starts moving and I'm thinking, no Eric, not now! but he just moved to a warmer spot.
Half an hour passes again in which time the female has eaten the roach.
This is when I decided to come on here and just as I started writing this post there is some scrambling in the cage.

I couldn't quite see what was going on but it kind of looked similar to last time, I could not see any good insertions

I am going to leave it I think, it is not going to be any better if I try again I reckon.

Again the female chased the male away at the end.

I am just really hopeful that the male just sat there and did not rush in like the first time because he could tell the female is pregnant? I will just have to wait and find out.

He is scared half to death poor little thing, getting him back in the cage was no problem this time either but he is really not too happy.

I wish I knew what these signs mean, I'm sure there is some sort of subtle communication going on between the spiders that we have to try and notice and understand but well I'm new to breeding and there is alot of guesswork going on atm.

[Louise~Nichols]

Hi Tom,
Well...there's a couple of possible suggestions, your lady is either gravid already (my fingers are crossed for you), so the sight of a male is the proverbial *red rag to a bull*...or maybe she's not in condition (mentally/physically whatever). But that's all I can speculate on at the moment...could you maybe post some photos of her and her enclosure, and same for the male...or give us a description of tub size, substrate used, amount of prey they're eating, current temperatures etc, in their homes? I know...it sounds like the inquisition, lol, but the answers may help!
Also is your lady getting *irritable*...ie, does she move her substrate around in one particular area, is she showing signs of favouring one area of her enclosure, and is this area getting more silking than would be expected?
Anyways...good luck!

[Nicola Dolby]

Good luck with the breeding Tom. I've thought of getting some G. rosea RCF to hone my breeding skills myself (don't all cringe at once). Peter my middle name begins with a J, that's j for jinx!

[Tom Forman]

Change of plan.

Basically if my female has been mated successfully, then Eric is not really needed anymore.

If she has not been mated, I need to get her mated asap. So Eric has been put back in the cage for a 4th time, if he gets eaten then we'd be back at scenario 1 but I doubt I would be able to use him next year if this mating was not successful.

I don't think introducing him for a 4th time is a good idea at all but I haven't got much to lose except a T that is coming up to his ultimate moult anyway...

So here goes again:




Male decides to go for the flower pot:




But the female hangs out on top of the flower pot!

Now the waiting game has begun again and I can tell this one is going to take much longer than half an hour.



Hmmm... I'm tempted to shoo him out of there. We will see how long it takes me till I can't wait any longer.

I know I can't leave them cause I need to be there to rescue Eric once they do find each other.

I just hope it doesn't take much longer.

[Tom Forman]

I decided it would be better to lure Eric out with a cricket before I tried to tease him with the tweezers.

That didn't work. Cricket rushed into the hide, Eric had him. Then Jordan, the female, got all excited and started walking about so I gave her a waxworm before she stumbled on Eric.
I wish I could have simulated that scenario without the cricket involved, it would have been perfect!

Anyway that was a bit of exitement. They've been together for 2 hours now.

As you can tell from the picture taking I am a bit bored lol.

[Louise~Nichols]

Thanks for putting the photos up Tom, if it carries on like this you'll be able to say you have a colony of Roseas...lol, just kidding!! Well...I'd have expected her to have been roaming to find him by now if she was desperate to mate (as my own Elvira did when Gangly Griff was put in to her home, the *arachnotart* was embarrassingly flirtatious!)...and vice versa, if she was *available* (ie unmated) I think he may have put more effort into seeking her out too. Has he made more sperm web since the last introduction? I think you may have a case of *sit back, feed well and wait* now...keep watching for her abdomen to fatten out over the next couple of months, see if she scrapes in the substrate, or puts silk down around the edges of her tub as she nears her laying time. Hope all goes well for you.

[Tom Forman]

thx louise,

I did notice that the female is getting fatter but then again I am powerfeeding her at the moment so I don't think that is a definite indication.

No scratching, i am quite surprised that she hasn't done any digging either.

Eric only made his sperm web Friday and no new one since. I would have been surprised if he had tbh, it looked like he put alot of work into his first one.

I will give them 3 more hours, then I will try and instigate an encounter.

Up till now she has not stopped him mating, it just looked really awkward these last few times, as if he couldn't quite lift her. It has not helped that she is sitting in the corner.

In fact, now that I think about it, the first time they mated was on the open surface and after that he alwasy tried in the corner behind the flower pot and it didn't work so I will try and get the female to move down first and see if that helps.