More tarantulas. A LOT more

[Snagrio]

She's already begun to burrow. I think the meal yesterday put her at ease that this is a good place to set up house.

[Snagrio]

Bit of an update. All the Ts are alive, eating and doing well. The versicolor molted, but I didn't have any luck sexing it as the whole thing fell apart. Oh well. Here's all the slings.





Adults.


Squitter made a fence/gate out of sub and webbing for the entrance of her hide, it's adorable.


In other news, due to the slings being picky and mostly wanting crickets, nearly all my mealworms have become beetles, so many that I gave them a bigger bin soon after this shot. Guess I'll just keep them around for a random colony.


Need to start labeling all of these.

[Snagrio]

So, through the amazing generosity of some admins of an invert server I'm in (all I had to pay for was shipping), I have acquired another T. A very tiny Lasiodora parahybana sling.


But that's not all. They also sent me three isopod species.

Porcellio laevis "Orange"



Armadillidium klugii "Dubrovnik"




And finally, the greatly coveted and beloved Cubaris sp. "Rubber Ducky"




Also finally did what I mentioned earlier and labeled all the inverts so it's nice and organized.

[Bogertophis]

That was nice of them-

[Snagrio]

Kind of a hodgepodge update. Been having some, frustrations with Mora. Decided to rearrange her setup to try and encourage her to web up more towards the ground and away from the lid and even made a leaning cork bark piece to make a "cave" to give her a starting point.



...And she decided to web up ABOVE the cork anyway and is once again right next to the lid.

Think I'm going to have to try and cut the lid in half and make a hinge on one side so I can get access without breaking her webs every time.

In other news, I jumped through several hoops trying to get a dubia colony going. Got them (adults and babies) and buffalo beetles at a show last weekend, and for some reason nobody at the show had egg cartons so I had to order some and used some cork bark flats as a temporary measure. Fast forward to now and they had arrived, but I spent two hours knocking small dubias and beetles out of the crevices of the cork and then had to cut the cartons two separate times because first they didn't fit, and then again because they were touching the lid which allowed the buffalo beetles to escape through the vent holes on the lid. Also got a heat pad attached (with a 'stat of course) so hopefully they'll start breeding.



Really I don't need that many dubias now, but I'm getting the numbers going well ahead of time for something in the future. Top secret.

[Bogertophis]

Mora sounds rather opinionated? When it comes to growing our own feeders, it's either famine (not enough & hard to get going) or "feast" (way too many)- I've never messed with dubia, but I used to grow mealworms (& have always raised rodents)- mealworms are much easier to contain, at least. I've never had any rodents escape either- that would be a nightmare- but I always have too many.

[Snagrio]

Really mixed bag of news. Things have not gone well for my P. parahybana... Checked on it one day and it looked dead, all curled up and not moving. And I made the massive mistake of picking it up to deal with the body, only for its legs to move. So either it was trying to molt, or was already declining for whatever reason. As of typing this it is still alive, but it's barely moving (occasionally changing position and reacting to light with leg movements) and no molt has happened for almost a full week since the initial incident so, it's not looking good... I'm guilt-ridden that I might have accidentally killed it by touching it when it was just trying to molt... The pics are from 5 days ago, to just now.




For some good news however, I was at my monthly local today and got some new isopods, and there were Mexican red knees in abundance unlike the last couple months, so I was able to get a well-started juvenile.

[Bogertophis]

Well, mistakes can happen to anyone, & it might have nothing to do with your touching it anyway. Congrats on the new red-knee.

[nikkubus]

What Bogertophis said. Poor little guy might have been already having issues for whatever reason. All you can really do is make sure hydration is on point and hope he/she pulls through. Wishing you luck. Congrats on your new red knee That was one of the few I really wanted and never managed to get back when I was keeping T's. Side note, you have no idea how much this thread makes me miss keeping T's. Maybe some day my nerve damage will completely heal and I can again.

[Snagrio]

It finally passed away overnight...

Didn't think there was any saving it anyway but it's still unfortunate...