Prison Break

[Mrs Linda Street]

We fed all our T's on Thursday morning, teatime hubby says "why is the lid off the C. Crawshayi?" "it's not" I said. "Well it's Gone" he said.
So for the next 4 hours, we looked everywhere, all the warm spots, pulled out the furniture, checked all the high shelves in our walk in cupboard, where we keep them, Nothing!! So we gave it up and went to bed.
6am this morning, hubby nudges me and says "look what's sitting on the chest of drawers!!!". I look with one eye open, and there is a large adult female sat at the side of the radio, and partly webbed the side. So it was out of bed, grab a tub and get her, and she was as quiet as could be! I think she was cold. We put her back into her tank and she wondered off into her hide. But to achieve her escape, she is situated on the top of a 5 tier rack, she came out of the cupboard, through the lounge door, across the hall, and into the bedroom. She passed two warm radiators and went upwards, and we thought she would look for a warm spot and on the ground. Goes to show, you never can tell!

[Ray Hale]

One of mine once pushed the lid of her tank on the top shelf, got through a locked door, down the stairs and was found hiding by the front door.

It was like Steve McQueen in the Great Escape. So near and yet so far

[Mrs Linda Street]

Hi Ray, hope you and Angela are ok. We are very much enjoying being members, and hope everything goes well at the show tomorrow. We would love to have been able to go, but it's not possible. Cheers.

[Faye Sweeney]

cor! thank goodness you found her! I'd be bricking it if I knew there was a Crawshayi running around somewhere!

[Mrs Linda Street]

Hi Faye, you can say that again, but what foxed us, we thought she would go for low and warm instead of going into a cold room! but we are still trying to figure how she got from the top shelf of a 5 tier rack, apparently with no harm, I'm making sure she's secure tonight

[Andrew Ferguson]

I'd only start to worry when in a few days a load of random eBay purchases turn up addressed to Ms C. Crawshayi.
Do you know exactley what she was upto when she escaped?

[Mrs Linda Street]

I've held an inquest into the escape and the conclusion is some idiot !!! left the weight off the top of the lid, and he's not sitting too far from me

[Colin D Wilson]

Tell Alan he's allowed to make the odd error, after all it is human nature........
.....Or do i mean male forgetfulness

Glad it's all sorted for you..

[Paul Behan]

Glad you managed to find her, their would be a mass eviction in my house if my 7" C. Crawshayi were to get loose. I have her tank under lock and key at all times. I guess you do to but we can and do forget from time to time.

Only other escapee I have had was my 3" Avic, 2 days looking for her only to find her camped in behind a hanging picture 5 foot away from her enclosure !!

[Mrs Linda Street]

Hi Paul, and welcome to the forum, nice to see you like the C. Crawshayi, we think they are stunning when they get big!, it's a pity they are not terrestial. We don't see much of ours, she only comes out at night, by the way has your's dug her own burrow?

[Paul Behan]

Hi Linda, indeed they are the jewel of any T collection in my opinion. I have my girl in a large ex fish tank. I have about 10 inches of peat and virmiculite mix in there with a broken flower pot up top. She quickly discovered the pot on day 1 and started to excavate straight away. She now has an elaborate series of tunnels going on and the good part is that you can see one of the tunnels through the glass on one side. Pity you dont see her much, I have to sneek into my T room with a flashlamp in the dead of night to catch her out and about. But hey, you gotta luv em !!!

Cheers

[James Box]

i do like these spiders!!! i have a nice bunch of them...but after what you've said i think i will take extra steps with the lids of their tanks! lol
to be honest i'm not that frightened of them, but i'm also not going to get too close. they are more defensive then anything in my experience....though they don't back down or run away...makes goading them with tweezers almost impossible
glad you found your girl though...she really did go on a long and interesting adventure!

[Mrs Linda Street]

Hi James, We were surprised she was strong enough to push the lid off, but when you look at those rear legs you can see why. we've got flat 1kg. weights on our lids now. If I remember, a few years back they were the No.1 spider to have, I think they would be more popular if they were to spend more time out in the open.

[James Box]

yeah guess they are quite strong!
the tanks i've got them in, they've hollowed out most of the bottom and there is a window into their burrow as a result! so i can see them just fine. also, they do come out at night occasionally!

[Mrs Linda Street]

How nice, we tried to engineer a viewing window with our big female, we used one of the small exo-tera clear tanks, on it's side pushed up to the back of the glass and then burried it in eco earth, she took to it straight away and we left a dark flap on the outside rear of the tank, so as we could lift it and have a look at her, but she's webbed it so heavily we can't see a thing, a bit like trying to peer throught the neighbours window net!!! not that we do that