First time breeding..advice please.

[Richard Groves]

yesterday, at the BTS show I purchased a male and femle Greenbottle Blue. They are currently being housed in a very large tank with a section that is seperated from the rest of the tank by a removable plastic devider.

This evening I caught the female drumming to the male. I sat and watched for the best part of an hour, my heart was racing! the only thing is, I don't know what to do next. Should I remove the devider, or should I let them get settled in a bit first? Is there any danger to the female? I appreciate males can get eaten, but do the females ever loose?

[jason holland]

i thought it was the males that did the beating???

[Richard Groves]

i thought it was the males that did the beating???

Nope, it was definately the female. She would give a few rapid vibrations with her front legs and the male would respond in a similar fashion.

[Kate Arbon]

I have heard that both sexes will drum if they are in the mood, but it is usually males.

My advice to you (I have no experience with breeding this species) is make sure the female is VERY well fed before mating them. GBBs are notorious for being man-eaters, and there is a good chance your male will get munched, so try and lessen that chance by getting her nice and fat first. GBBs are pigs so it is hard to fill them up.

This thread on AB was started by someone after the same info as you - http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=121750 - and M.F Bagaturov who posted in it seems to know a lot about breeding them so might be worth reading that, visiting his site and then asking him any questions you have. I know he recommends raised humidity before mating so there might be other things you can do as well.

Of course you could always just stick them together now and see what happens. But with this species I think it could be very worthwhile doing the preparation right, because you may only get one chance...

Good luck!! I am hoping to try breeding GBBs when my male matures. Be sure to let us know how it goes

EDIT:- in fact here is an excellent article by Bagaturov on the subject, from a certain journal - http://tarantulas.tropica.ru/files/Bagaturov%20M(2007)Hobby%20Jewellery_BTS%20Journal %2022_2.pdf

[Tom Forman]

sry for hijacking thread. no point making new thread.

Just me up at 3am still, having been woken by my female I tried mating couple months back. She has been on cooler temps for 1 week now and has definetely started acting differently. Well for starters she woke me lol, scratching away at the side in a rythmic way.

rich, there is not much to mating, the spids do what they have to do and do it just fine by themselves, what you have got to do is make sure all the conditions are right.

it helps if they are both not stressed out.

both should be well fed but especially female.

Give male alot of water and higher humidity for week before mating (I think they need more water than females to keep their sperm fresh), would be best if he has made a fresh sperm web, high humidity will encourage this.

introduce male to female so that female is not too stressed (always furthest corner away from female).

Avoid bumps and any vibrations to cage.

be ready to save the male once they're done.


you will see that mating is infact the easy bit, getting the female to then lay eggs and getting the eggs to hatch, that is the hard bit

[Richard Groves]

Well, tonight I decided to go for it. Following the advice given, I had raised the temperature in the tank and the humidity and made sure the female was well fattened up. At around 9 pm, I removed the deviding bar from the tank and allowed the male full access to the females quarters.

Once again th female sensed the male was in close proximity and began to drum, the male drew closer but seemed unsure. I decided to prevent any further stress to leave them be.

8:00am this morning I was greeted by the sight of one fat(er) GBB with a half chewed up male in it's mouth. I actually feel really bad, but I guess the male would have had a short life anyway.

I'm not holding out much hope for an egg sack, but if she does lay one it will be a bonus.

[jason holland]

you get any pics? as gross as it makes me sound id love to see the aftermath of a (in the males case) bad mating, and any during pics etc. hope in the end tho, its a good mating for you

[Oli Dodds]

8:00am this morning I was greeted by the sight of one fat(er) GBB with a half chewed up male in it's mouth. I actually feel really bad, but I guess the male would have had a short life anyway.

Ok... By your initial post i knew you were not ready at all to begin breeding anything... You should never get into things like this without a hell of a lot of research.
1) Im highly doubting the male was mature.
2) Was foolish trying to mate them anyway, you should have waited for the female to moult out first.
3) Dont take advice from somebody who already made this exact same mistake. He was lucky his male wasnt munched either.
4) You should have stayed and overviewed the situation for at least 30 mins and if nothing happened, removed the male.


Do i have to go on?
What a shame to waste a spider like that. My advice to you: Dont ever try to breed any creature ever again without lots of research into it. And not just the type of animal, the species as well.

End rant.

[Oli Dodds]

rich, there is not much to mating

From the 1 sp 'concepicon' attempt you speak of this?

both should be well fed but especially female.

I believe this is to stop her eating the sac, not the male.

Give male alot of water and higher humidity for week before mating (I think they need more water than females to keep their sperm fresh)

Link to where you have read this please.

would be best if he has made a fresh sperm web, high humidity will encourage this.

Link to this too?

introduce male to female so that female is not too stressed (always furthest corner away from female).

Ahh, theres the sound advice...

you will see that mating is infact the easy bit, getting the female to then lay eggs and getting the eggs to hatch, that is the hard bit

Again, does this knowledge come from the concepicon incident?

[mary walters]

Males have been known to eat females, not a common occurance but it does happen.

A lot of valid veiws have been put forward and I agree with Oli, research should have been done before any attempt made.
A few questions for you...
1) Was the male mature?
2) Did you ask when the female last moulted?
3) Did you wait for the male to make a sperm web?
4) Do you know what a sperm web is and would you recognise one if you saw it?
I work on a 3 month window from last moult with all of my females, after that I don't bother and wait for next moult.
We got a sac from this sp a year or two back but mating was not easy, and I certainly wouldn't have chosen them for my first attempt.

[Richard Groves]

Ok... By your initial post i knew you were not ready at all to begin breeding anything... You should never get into things like this without a hell of a lot of research.
1) Im highly doubting the male was mature.
2) Was foolish trying to mate them anyway, you should have waited for the female to moult out first.
3) Dont take advice from somebody who already made this exact same mistake. He was lucky his male wasnt munched either.
4) You should have stayed and overviewed the situation for at least 30 mins and if nothing happened, removed the male.


Do i have to go on?
What a shame to waste a spider like that. My advice to you: Dont ever try to breed any creature ever again without lots of research into it. And not just the type of animal, the species as well.
Your lucky i got to you first with proper advice and a good telling... Youd be reduced to tears if Tesco or Toran got to you first

End rant.

You know what Oli, I actually don't consider it a waste at all. I had a mature male greenbottle blue, who was going to lead a very short life span. I did as much research as I could and decided to attempt a breeding. You offered no help or advice when I first posted this thread asking for help, so why add to the post now just to tell me I've done it all wrong and on top of that critisize Toms advice? I strongly believe that the male should have been given his chance with the female even if I had done no research at all, rather than see him die without getting a chance.

A lot of valid veiws have been put forward and I agree with Oli, research should have been done before any attempt made.
A few questions for you...
1) Was the male mature?
2) Did you ask when the female last moulted?
3) Did you wait for the male to make a sperm web?
4) Do you know what a sperm web is and would you recognise one if you saw it?
I work on a 3 month window from last moult with all of my females, after that I don't bother and wait for next moult.
We got a sac from this sp a year or two back but mating was not easy, and I certainly wouldn't have chosen them for my first attempt.

1) Yes, completely mature.

2) 8 weeks ago.

3 & 4) Yes and Yes (I have kept single males before, just never had a female to pair them with)


You know what, I started this thread to get help and information on the right way to go about it, for those that offered advice, I thank you. For those that just want to have a rant, stay away. If you can't be bothered to offer good advice, don't bother bother saying anything at all.

[Oli Dodds]

You know what Oli, I actually don't consider it a waste at all. I had a mature male greenbottle blue, who was going to lead a very short life span. I did as much research as I could and decided to attempt a breeding. You offered no help or advice when I first posted this thread asking for help, so why add to the post now just to tell me I've done it all wrong and on top of that critisize Toms advice? I strongly believe that the male should have been given his chance with the female even if I had done no research at all, rather than see him die without getting a chance.



1) Yes, completely mature.

2) 8 weeks ago.

3 & 4) Yes and Yes (I have kept single males before, just never had a female to pair them with)


You know what, I started this thread to get help and information on the right way to go about it, for those that offered advice, I thank you. For those that just want to have a rant, stay away. If you can't be bothered to offer good advice, don't bother bother saying anything at all.

I dont get on this forum much anymore and didnt see your original thread???
And yes, it was a waste of a male. If you want my advice... do some research before jumping in. And more free advice... start out breeding easy slow movers such as brachys/grammys.
What you should have done with so little experiance was to send the male out to somebody with experiance.
As for Toms advice... you can discredit the majority of it as he has almost zero personal experiance with breeding other then putting an immature male in with a female one time. I am getting fed up of coming on here and seeing invalid advice being given out as 'fact' by certain people on the boards.
If you want help breeding, why dont you drop a pm to one of our more capable and experianced members such as Mary/Colin/Chris/Toran etc etc etc...
The reason im ranting is because the death of a living creature by other peoples animosity to have an ounce of patience to take the time to properly divulge in reading as much information possible on the subject.
Also the attitude of 'oh well if it dies its only a male...' that some people have taken up on the boards sickens me also. So what if it doesnt have long left to live? Doesnt mean you need to risk shortening its life unnecessarily. Want me to kill your Grandpa by putting him with 2 young bondage lesbians and a strap-on?? Same concept in my eyes...

[Naython J]

i must say i completely agree with oli on this mate you really should have waited and spoke with a range of expereinced breeders they are always willing to help even if you have to pm them. i am also looking at breeding gbb's but am waitying a few months untill i can get the full ideas as i already know they are notoriuosly hard to breed. i feel if you ask for advice on here and dont wait long enough to get good replies and then attack the people who say that you was wrong then you are wrong at the end of the day even what has been said is still good advice call it constructive critiscm if you like but still genuine advice,

[Colin D Wilson]

Just poking my nose in to say...

up to this point the debates gone ahead with some fairly strong opinions and has, so far, kept within the confines of what I call healthy discussion.

Looking in from the outside i can see everybodies point of view and excellent comments they are from ALL parties, hopefully it wont be getting to the point where we have to call it a day.

Lets try and keep it as constructive as it has been so others may come on here and take the information away with them for the better.

Thanks

Colin

[Andrew Ferguson]

I have to agree with Oli's original post. What I did find off putting was the tone towards Richard. No one likes being told off and Richard was well and truly scolded.
We want to keep the forum a friendly place and we all want to receive the best and accurate advice we can get or give. I can see why Oli was frustrated and hence his tone, but Oli, maybe a toned down telling off followed by a PM may have been the way to go. I feel if I was on the receiving end I would appreciate a reply like that.
Maybe I just want a happy smiley world.

And Richard, just put this down to a valuable lesson learned. Move on and just take note of what some of the more experienced members of the BTS have advised.