Goodbye Tears

I am way overdue on some updates. We've moved twice and had another (human) baby since my last update. I've been meaning to get back over here, but it is hard to find time with two little humans under foot (plus I stay busy on my other blog). Spiders are so much easier! I did, however, get a little prod of inspiration this week. Stan Schultz, co-author of The Tarantula Keeper's Guide, emailed me requesting permission to link a couple of my photos from this blog. I was so excited and flattered! He was glad to inspire my return to the blog as well.

The photos he will be linking (on a care sheet on relative humidity with regard to tarantula care) were of silk turrets made by our Cobalt Blue (Haplopelma lividium), Tears. She turned out to be a he and passed away before our last move. He did stay hidden so much that we're not sure how long he was dead before we noticed. He was a gorgeous specimen.

And so, in honor of Tears, and perhaps a new tradition for this blog, here are all of my photos of him. These are unedited and not cropped - just resized for posting. (I usually crop to just the good bits.) I'm also posting these in case Stan would rather use any of my other silk turret photos. I had not posted all of them. Perhaps I can get some publishing advice from him as well! I have a partially-written basics book on tarantulas. I could use some inspiration there, too, but have another project I need to finish first.

Without further ado, here are my Tears photos:

General Update

Sorry for the gap in updates, folks. We've had a few health issues and even deaths in our [human] family in the past few months. It really put our hobby on the back burner.

You missed our Indian Ornamental (Punjab) molting again already. We may have to move it into a bigger jar again soon! None of the photos came out very clear, too much glare off the glass jar.

Tears (Cobalt Blue) spent about 4 days straight (day and night!) working on a new hole. It is larger than her original burrow. Then she retreated back to her original hole and we haven't seen her since! We're used to her hiding, but we're getting a little worried. Hopefully she'll peek out soon.

We got Hyde (Brazilian Fire Red) moved into a larger container that holds moisture much better than the previous dish. We won't be using that one for pets anymore, though we may use it as a temporary spot for small crickets. Hyde has just started moving dirt around in the last couple of days.

My Curly Hair (S.F.B.) has finally been moving dirt and digging in his new cage. I noticed today that his abdomen coloring looks different. I think he(?) may molt again soon!

Pretty much all the "kids" are looking fat and sassy, especially the babies! We're currently trying the larger spiders on Super Worms. They are an option we can keep on hand for longer than crickets. Everyone seems to like them alright. We just have to be careful not to let them burrow into the dirt. This is slightly limiting, but they're pretty fat so we can give one at a time. Even Jekyll and Hyde have managed them!

Jekyll after winning the fight against a Super Worm

Tears - Hide & Seek

Tears, our Haplopelma lividum (Cobalt Blue) is quite the hermit. We rarely see her at all.

Cobalt Blue Tarantula Habitat

You see that we provided a hide for her, but she chose to burrow her own. We love for our pets to create their own burrows! However, if we'd known she would do it we might have left the clay pot out of her cage. Since she has built her burrow against it, we can't remove it. Oh well.

This is about the only glimpse we might catch of her:

Cobalt Blue Tarantula Burrow
Do you see her down there?

King & Other Updates

Well, it seems King was headed into his hide to molt! Elmo looked over to find this:

Theraphosa blondi
(Goliath Birdeater)
Settling in to Molt

You may recall, King had broken his leg. We're hoping his leg will come out anew which usually happens when injured spiders molt.

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In other news today, Fuzzy Britches (Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula) has been pushing dirt up very high in the corners of her habitat. I very much want to give him more dirt, but we do not have any more on hand after giving all of it to King and we're snowed in right now.

Most of the larger spiders have been active today.

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The next local Reptile Expo is coming up on the weekend of February 19th. Now we have to decide whether we're going to do a fancy meal or just do the Expo for Valentine's Day this year. Tarantulas are wonderful gifts, right?

King

We added almost an entire brick of substrate to King's aquarium, working around him. We built up the height on the corners and took out the fake skull for now. He hasn't been in his hide since he broke his leg, but over the past several days he has been slowly working his way toward it. He is finally (mostly) inside it and we're both pleased. It is somehow reassuring to see him back in his "home."

Long Time No Update

I recently expanded my spider family. I was at the PetCo to see what they had. I can't get the guy at e-Spiderworld to return my calls or reply to my emails. I feel like some kind of stalker, but I've been a good customer... I just prefer to purchase my spiders in person and carry them home rather than having them shipped.

So I was at PetCo... hoping to find an arboreal species... even though I prefer not to purchase from a pet store. They only had one tarantula... a Grammostola rosea (Chilean Rose Hair). I guess I had the new pet itch, because I just had to have it. The guy working really didn't like the spiders, so he was happy to let me get her out of the aquarium myself. He brought me this little cardboard box and I looked at him like he was crazy. I bought a kritter keeper (only by some other company) and put it directly into it. Off the top of my head, I can't recall if it's a boy or a girl and now it is hiding. This was a month ago or so. My life got real chaotic... so I finally named it the other day - Chaos. I put in one of those log things and Chaos liked to hang out on top of it... I guess now got more used to it because Chaos is hiding IN it and even dug some extra dirt out from under it.

Now a concern - the end of the log close to the plastic of the habitat has some furry green spots on it. I'm going to post to a spider community to see if this is cause for concern or no big deal. I don't like to have mold around... but Chaos really likes this log!

And Anansi - my baby

Anansi is doing very well. She is SOOO fat right now! She also shows a black dot underneath on her rear end. So I'm hoping for another molt soon. I took several shots of her a couple of weeks ago, too. I had her posing with a quarter, too, but none of the shots with the quarter came out as well as this one.

See Anansi chowing in early December:

Brachypelma smithi ~ eating

She has continued to try to attack the water when I add water to her habitat. I also swapped her cages with Babs and gave her some bed-a-beast. I think she likes it. I gave her a full tube, too (short, but not cut down the center). She seems to like the tube a lot and has dug out some dirt on one end of it. She still has the half-tube, too and likes to stand on top of it.

Her belly is so fat that I'm afraid to feed her any more. Unfortunately, Special K has died and so there are fat juicy crickets in his cage with nowhere to go. Good thing they're cheap. I tell people they are the cheapest pets to keep (outside of Pet Rocks, perhaps).

Anyway, ain't she a beauty?! Thanks for lookin'.

Dirt

I sprinkled some new soil over the hide and along one edge of the cage. I don't know yet what Anansi thinks of it... she seems to be slow to warm up to stuff anyway. So far, I've only seen her in the opposite corner of the cage. I hope she likes it... dirt is a little more difficult to remove than cardboard... and I don't have any other dirt right now.

Hide Update

I was checking on Anansi yesterday and saw some different horizon along the bottom of the cage, so I picked it up (wondering if it could possibly be molt remains). She has been spending a LOT of time on the walls of her cage... I'm not sure why. She hasn't been up at the lid, though, so I don't guess she's trying to get out or anything. Anyway, the difference was that she has kicked up a little bit of dirt on the side of the hide... ok, this looks like progress, perhaps. Then I looked at the end of the tube (which is against the wall) and she has dug all the way down to the bottom of the cage in one spot against the wall! She's actually been IN there now. lol I haven't caught her in there, but I guess maybe she likes it. Yay! I'm still considering sprinkling some of the new dirt over the tube... wonder if that would make her mad or if she'd like it. Seems funny sometimes how we try to estimate what they like and what they don't like.

Hide

Anansi is finally giving some attention to her hide. She has been touching it all day, as far as I can tell. I haven't seen her IN it yet, but she has had a leg or four on it at one angle or another every time I've looked at her today. I swear she was looking at me like "where's my snack?" earlier! lol

Substrate & Hide Update

Thanks for all the great advice everyone! I went ahead and used the paper towel roll, but she has pretty much avoided it altogether. I'm considering scattering some new dirt over it before giving up and removing it, though. Today she did touch the TOP of it with one pedipalp while holding her lunch. That's as close to it as I've seen her get. In fact, she's been spending a lot of time on the walls of her new home since I added the hide.

I haven't yet added any of the organic soil I got. Now my paranoia involves the high moisture content in the baggie... and how to get rid of it without just leaving the dirt out in the open (for other bugs or ants).

Substrate & Hide advice, please - Safe Choices?

I am shopping around for substrate and hides for my B. smithi. The guy at the pet store made a recommendation for the substrate, but I'm so paranoid about buying the wrong thing. Here's what he recommended: Bed-A-Beast Litter. I was trying to find some sort of small amount to buy, so this seemed a viable option. I hate that a lot of these things don't tell you the ingredients, though! Today I shopped around the store and also found T-Rex Jungle Bed which looks a lot like what I've got (from the breeder). I know the breeder mixes two things to make his substrate, but I can't recall at the moment what those two things are.

As for the hide... I couldn't find anything small enough for the cage, so I was considering cutting a toilet paper (unscented) roll down and give that to her. Is this safe? I've seen where people use film canisters, but I think she needs something slightly larger. She has never had a hide before, but she doesn't really burrow - she just gets a little dent in the dirt or smooshes as close to a wall as possible. I think she would like a hide.

Thanks for any advice you guys can offer!