What a day!

So I was doing my feeding rounds this evening and I have found three more moults! Although in truth it wasn't as easy as that!

My G.rosea's moult was easy enough to find, although it had taken me a little bit by surprise because she never seemed to go through the pre-moult phase; she hasn't been off her food and she hadn't really changed colour.

Then I came to my A.purpurea, and noticed that she was a lot more 'shiny' and a lot bigger. After a lot of rooting round, I found her moult, tucked away nicely on the bit of greenery I have in for her. This one I was really chuffed about though, because Avic's need really high humidity, around 80% to be able to survive and obviously its hard to monitor that in such a small setup.

With all that behind me, and nearly everyone given a cricket, I decided to have a root around in my three slings that like living underground; my C.marshalli, N.chromatus and C.fasciatum.

First up was the Nhandu, and Jesus did she give me a scare! After around a minute of very light digging around and removing of substrate, I came across some legs which were not moving, and slowly digging away I found what looked like a dead sling! As you can imagine, my heart sank a little but I wanted to make sure. Thankfully though after a little bit more digging I could see some movement and there she popped out, making it my third successful moult today! Ofcourse, I don't know when she moulted, but I guess it was within the last week as she is still quite pale.

Anyway, I then proceeded to dig out the other two, and both of them are massive! I dug them both out completely but could find no trace of a moult, so I'm guessing they're now both in pre-moult, which would tie in nicely with their feeding records; the C.fasciatum hasn't eaten now for a whole week!

Kurt out.

I will get pictures, I promise

Managed to get some pictures of the B.emilia, but I have misplaced my USB cable so can't upload them. My G.pulchra seems to like life under ground, and my E.vulpinus insists on climbing which is making photo opportunities difficult!

I will get some though, i promise!

Another day, another moult!

Well I had a great day out today. I went with my mum to West Midland Safari Park which was excellent. They have an excellent variety of animals in the safari park itself, and for £4 extra you can get driven around in a mini bus with a guided tour, and you get taken up close and personal with the animals.

But what is really worth mentioning is the Reptile House. They have a brilliant collection including Reticulated Pythons, Green Anacondas, Alligators, Crocodiles, Rattlesnakes and Cobras. But what is even more impressive is their enclosures, they were first class.

They also have a Goliath (Theraphosa blondi) there, but unfortunately it was hidden away so I only got to see its back legs! :(

Anyway, back on track.

When I came home I found that another one of my slings had moulted! This time, it was my Euathlus vulpinus (Chile Occelated). The moult itself was in excellent condition (perhaps my G.pulchra should take note!), and I managed to fool my parents that I had got the sling out for a play, so that was a bonus.

I'm also thinking that my Cyclosternum Fasciatum and Avicularia purpurea have entered pre-moult. Both of them are reliable eaters, but neither has eaten in the past two attempts.

I'll be getting pics up tomorrow of the three recently moulted slings; B.emilia, G.pulchra and E.vulpinus.

She's ok

Just checked on my G.pulchra and she is still going strong after yesterday's events. Just thought I would let you all know!

Completed!

About two hours later (I think) and the G.pulchra has finished molting.

I sat for the entire time watching it, and bloody hell is it an amazing process!

However, there was a slight complication during the molt, the old exoskeleton was stuck to her abdomen and she (I'll refer to them all as she from now on) was running round almost as soon as she flipped back over trying to get it off.

A similar thing happened with my sub adult B.smithi and a friend kindly helped her by moistening the troubled area and gently pulling off the skin. Using this experience, I had to do the same thing with the sling, however it seemed that all that was needed was a little moisture and it fell right off.

I'm hoping that I did the right thing, and that I haven't caused her any damage, but perhaps this was a warning to me that the humidity wasn't high enough, and that is certainly something I will be keeping a much closer eye on in the future.

I'll report back when I get home from work to let you know if she is ok. Fingers crossed.

G.pulchra starts to moult

As I was going round feeding my slings, I noticed that my G.pulchra (Brazilian Black) was on its back and starting to moult!

As you can imagine, the temptation to get some photos and videos of the molt in action is huge, but I'm sure you can appreciate the fact that I don't want to disturb the little one, so I'm holding off on that front.

Fingers crossed that the molt goes to plan, and I'll post an update later on this evening!

Moulted!

Great news! My B.emilia moulted over night, making her the first of my spiderlings to moult.

This moult has also re-generated her missing leg, and although it is lighter in colour than all the others and somewhat smaller, it is good to see her with a full set of legs!

Her colouration has changed a little bit; her abdomen is darker than it was before and her overall colour has also changed a little bit, but there are still no clear markings yet.

I'm gonna hold off on the picture front for a day or two, don't want to disturb her too much. I've already been in to take out the molt though, so here is a pic of that:





As always, you'll need to click the image to see the full size version.

B.emilia enters pre-moult

Good news today, it looks like my Brachypelma emilia has entered pre-moult.

I checked them all this morning and he/she has gone considerably darker than she was, in fact she is a very dull grey now, instead of the peachy colour she was before.

Hopefully the moult will happen with in the next few days and nothing bad will occur. It will also be interesting to see how the missing leg grows back.

More pictures

I finally got my A.purpurea to pose for a picture a whole week after I got the others photographed, so here it is in all its glory:


Avicularia Purpurea



And as promised yesterday, I also took some pictures of the Avic's webbing and the tunnel that the C.marshalli has dug.


Avicularia purpurea's webbing


Ceratogyrus marshalli's tunnel

A little update

Sorry for the lack of updates this week, but its been a pretty hectic week for me, plus there hasn't really been much to report. I've had three pretty successful feeding nights, with all the slings eating at least one meal during the week, and the majority of them eating three.

I did have a nice surprise though on Wednesday when I did my daily inspection. I noticed that my C.marshalli decided to do some digging in its substrate and has created a nice little tunnel network, which currently has two entrances. Both of them look perfectly webbed inside, and all you can see are the little feet of the sling, and as soon as it is disturbed, it scurries back down beneath the ground. As you can probably imagine, this really made my day!

And this morning I had another nice surprise; my A.purpurea has also been doing a bit of house work, finally building a tunnel web to hang around in.

My camera is on charge at the moment, so I will try and get some photos up of the home improvements tomorrow.