Another community project!

[wayne balcombe]

Hi all,

Its been a while since I posted on here and have been up to my eyeballs in work, family, breeding projects, etc, so not been online that much.

Well i'm back on the scene again now and thought i'd share my latest project with you all.

I've recently bred my OBT's (Pterinochilus marinus) and had a good healthy sac............. and maybe another sac in the next few weeks as the female is feeding up and getting fat and heavily webbing again.

I've seperated all the slings into individual pots except 10 which i have decided to keep together as a little experiment. I've made up an enclosure, its a 30cm x 20cm x 25cm tank with about 5 inches of coir/sand/spagnum moss substrate, there are various bits of cork bark, plastic plants and leaf litter to hide in and around, i've covered the plastic vented lid with a fine grade NYLON mesh (pair of tights) to prevent escape of feeder insects or the spiders.

So far all is well, they are not showing any aggression toward eachother and spend alot of thier time huddled together in the same corner of the tank.

I know slings of all species will live together happily for a certain amount of time but fingers crossed if i can keep them well fed and happy i may have a stable community.

[craig mcinnes]

I can't remember off hand anyone successfully keeping murinus communal to adulthood so look forward to updates on this project. Good luck.

[Mark Harrison]

Wayne, im pretty sure Peter Lacey had a good P Murinus colony going. It may be an idea to see what he experienced and if any problems arised etc

[Nicola Dolby]

Brilliant! Good luck with that. I hope it works for you. let us know how you get on

[wayne balcombe]

It was peters experience that convinced me to try it.

I know peter had the slings and the mother all in together for months but i wanted to try something slightly different and hopefully it will work out.

I will speak to peter about any observations he made on the behaviour etc and should be able to minimise any cannibalism, who knows if this works out and they make it to adults it may be worth a paper.

I will keep you all updated so appologies in advance for dragging this thread to the top everytime i post a review.

Any advice anyone can offer on any other community project would be most welcome.

[Colin D Wilson]

Tried it with P murinus, Craigs right ... as soon as they sterted to get to a decent size you'd find the odd leg here and there after a midnight feast.
I think the problem would arise if the slings were left in with mum for the duration too.

I used a tank (exo cube size) gave them the option to chose to be arboreal, terrestrial and fossorial to give the colony a sporting chance, provided plenty of food and they still got under each others feet.

Pokies seem to be the better (more common) area to hit.

H gigas went to sub adult before any problems arose (30ins x 18ins x 18ins wooden viv)
Guyanan Avicularia (small blue jobbies)= no problems
A. versicolor ok till juvenile
small Yamia colony with large floor area were fine (intill two matured into male and started wandering)

[Peter Lacey]

Well done for trying this Wayne, I'm sure you'll find it rewarding.
I cut my colony down by selling them off gradually and now have a colony of less than 10, probably 5 or 6. They are from August 2009 slings. Cannibalism isnt something Ive noticed, even in periods when feeding has been lean, infact it looks as if I lost one to starvation recently, slapped wrist for that.
Sizewise they are quite different and reading on this thread I wish I had of set things up differently, perhaps I'll add more substrate and furnishings to my deep faunarium.
From breeding these Ive found the males and females will happily live together, the only point of aggression being immediately after "the deed" or if the males become weak.
I currently have 2 females mated at the moment so anyone wishing to replicate this can have the chance later in the year, fingers crossed.

What about some pix Wayne?

[wayne balcombe]

cheers peter,

like i say i will keep updating this thread and i'll deffo try to get some pictures up,

i threw in about 30 small crickets yesterday, a few were equal in size if not slightly larger than the slings though this doesn't seem to have phased them, i found 2 spiders sharing one of the larger crickets this morning, not sure if they hunted together or just took the oppertunity of an easy meal.

like peter i have some of these available still if anyone wants to give this a go, i will also have another shed load in a month or 2.


Just out of interest, P.marinus are known for creating secondary sacs after the first has hatched out etc, is there any trigger for this of do they just do it of there own accord?