Heat tape malfunction. Hoping our girl isn't fried..

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Originally Posted by TheSnakeGeek

i wouldn't say i've seen several hundred in my time, just the three in my collection and the ones i've seen at shows and a couple friends'.. but none of them had the head "twitch" she has. is that common with spiders with bad wobbles?

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I got a spider in a trade recently who has no wobble at all but his head does do the "twitch" or "vibrating" that I saw in your video when it's feeding time and he's about to strike his meal so I would say it's probably common with the spider gene. Not saying that's what's wrong with your girl but the vibrating in and of itself for spider seems pretty normal.

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Originally Posted by Anya

And this week? She still doing alright (all things considered)?

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she's still alive. still hasn't eaten for us. her corkscrewing is still pretty bad, but it SEEMS the head "twitching" may be getting a little better (although it could just be me being overly hopeful too).

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Originally Posted by angllady2

As best I can tell, with my admittedly limited experience, this is way harder for us to deal with than it is them. My Aries, the little het pied who is so badly damaged, is very strong willed. Even though his poor body won't obey him, he doesn't let it slow him down. The older he gets, the more he learns to adjust for the way his body works and the easier it becomes for him to do things.

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do you feed live or f/t? she's always gotten live, but with her new disorientation i'm curious if she'd even be able to snag a live one. she still hasn't eaten for us yet when we've offered live. we've been offering her pretty small, slower rats. we'll try again when sunday comes around like we have been. this time if she doesn't take we might try the pre-kill route (as much as i hate doing it) and leaving it in with her over night.

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Originally Posted by angllady2

Perhaps I can get my husband to take a little video of him, so you can see what I mean. Your girl has some brain damage, of that I am sure, but I don't think it will affect her much at all. Given a little time, she will overcome most of it, even if the symptoms don't improve on their own. Aries is testimony to that.

Gale

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that would be awesome! thank you so much for the info. i knew someone here would have some (unfortunate) experience with something like this.

My Aries gets live. He's on mice right now, mostly because of convenience. Sometimes he's all over that mouse the second it hits the tub. Sometimes he'll miss four or five, even six times. He'll get disgusted and cranky, then he takes his time, get's his body the way he needs it to be, makes sure of his mark, and then bam! no more mouse.

It will undoubtedly take her some time to get adjusted to how her body works now, but don't give up on her. You may even try skipping this weeks offering, and then maybe next week she'll be in a better position to try again.

My husband said he'll try and help me get a video tonight when he gets home.

Gale

just an update. she shed last night! which is a good thing it feels like.. she still hasn't eaten for us yet, but she hasn't really lost any weight. still waiting..

I'm glad she's at least not worse! How's her behavior?

still uncoordinated and corkscrewing, but some people i've talked to have said they've seen spiders with worse corkscrewing than her that went on to live healthy lives and grew up fine, so i'm hopeful.