Defects

[Brian goosen]

Hey guys and girls.

I’d like to ask advice, a friend and I both bought our Brachypelma albopilosuma week apart, it has been staying by me for the past week as he was on vacation, he’s one had final molt the weekend, Adult male and is bigger than mine, now I understand there are many factors that play a roll in this, feeding, sex of the T and so on, that is not the cause of my confusion, what totally got my head spinning is how he molted, I missed the actual molt with minutes, he was still on he’s back, all light and soft when I got home, I removed the skin a few hours later and could see that the molt was clean, the skin was perfect all intact. The T now has a very odd problem, the one hind leg has a very sharp kink to it and on the opposite side the second from behind looks as if the leg has made a spiral turn to the point of the bottom of the “Foot” facing up… it’s been 2 days and looks as if it is going to stay that way. What could have possibly caused a defect like that? I do know of a few times that he fed the T some criekets from the garden as he ran out of “clean” ones, could it be that?

The curiosity is burning inside me to find out about this and prevent it from happening to my friends T’s and my collection if it is something I can prevent.

Thanks.

[Phil Rea]

Re: Defects

Things like that usually happen if the spider has moulted in a confined space (sometimes oddly of it's own choosing) or if it has been pressing down on a leg (sitting on it for want of a better description), and the spider has hardened with the leg or legs in that position.

If the spider has enough space, then there's nothing you can do to prevent it.

[Brian goosen]

Hi Phil

Thank you for the advice, I am somewhat glad to hear that it could be out of it’s own choice as it dose have ample space, I have 31 T’s and I have never seen that before.

Once again thank you very much, do appreciate.