I Thought I Killed her!

[haily33621]

Hi everyone,
I have a Brazilian black tarantula sling.
I’ve had her for about two months. She is my first eight legged friend. She had a difficult trip here, as FedEx lost her. She is about 3 inches. I got her a glass cage and have a humidity and temperature monitor. I was stressed about both indicators and had a spray bottle handy.

In my head I thought a few things:
1. This girl’s species lived out in the wild with heat, sun, droughts, large and small insects, etc.
2. If she could live out there, she should be able to live in a FANCY cage.

we went out of town for Christmas and let her be. She hadn’t eaten in two weeks, but apparently that is pretty normal, slings (from what I researched) molt two times a month. She hid under her log for two weeks until we came back home. My husband told me to lift up the log... to make sure she was alive. Instead we took pictures. I could slightly see her but she seemed to be up against the log. We waited and the next day we looked again. Gave her a cricket and waited until that evening. I lifted up the log because the pictures seemed to show her in the death curl (and I’m so new at this). After doing so, she came out! And left a molt. Please give your T’s time and don’t disturb them. If we had done this a day or two earlier she could have been mid molt and we could have hurt her....
below is a picture of her when we got her, the picture we saw under the log, her molt, and her new fresh outer layer.

 

[FishermanSteve]

Hi everyone,
I have a Brazilian black tarantula sling.
I’ve had her for about two months. She is my first eight legged friend. She had a difficult trip here, as FedEx lost her. She is about 3 inches. I got her a glass cage and have a humidity and temperature monitor. I was stressed about both indicators and had a spray bottle handy.

In my head I thought a few things:
1. This girl’s species lived out in the wild with heat, sun, droughts, large and small insects, etc.
2. If she could live out there, she should be able to live in a FANCY cage.

we went out of town for Christmas and let her be. She hadn’t eaten in two weeks, but apparently that is pretty normal, slings (from what I researched) molt two times a month. She hid under her log for two weeks until we came back home. My husband told me to lift up the log... to make sure she was alive. Instead we took pictures. I could slightly see her but she seemed to be up against the log. We waited and the next day we looked again. Gave her a cricket and waited until that evening. I lifted up the log because the pictures seemed to show her in the death curl (and I’m so new at this). After doing so, she came out! And left a molt. Please give your T’s time and don’t disturb them. If we had done this a day or two earlier she could have been mid molt and we could have hurt her....
below is a picture of her when we got her, the picture we saw under the log, her molt, and her new fresh outer layer.
View attachment 42638

Glad to see she’s ok! Great t to start with too. Male or female you will enjoy that spider for a long time

 

[menavodi]

Good looking spider. You have the patience and you will have a lot of fun.

 

[Konstantin]

Hi
@haily33621
I wont obsess too much on exact temperature and humidity values(them cheap gauges are not accurate enough anyway).U can do more harm than good while trying to achieve them.Ambient room temperature around 20- 23°C is more than enough to have happy Tarantula.About humidity if U provide water dish and moisten one corner of the enclosure and let it dry then moisten different corner etc it will be sufficient .U will see then if the T gravitates toward the wet or the dry part of the enclosure and will know how often to do so without making stuffy stagnant air environment in the enclosure.
Regards Konstantin

 

[Arachnoclown]

Just remember your spider is captive bred. If you try to use the philosophy of where they live in the wild you will lose every time. Mortality rate in the wild is extremely high for tarantulas.