About two years I had a M. balfouri mature on me so I sent him off to another keeper for breeding.
This was successful and he let them hatch with the mother. Due to the virus we were unable to meet up for quite some time so his communal started looking like this:
December last year we were finally able to meet up to exchange "slings". They were all already quite big, 11 in total, which I put into a communal enclosure:
They rapidly turned the enclosures into a space of their own:
The "unfortunate" news here was that of the 22 slings he had, most of them were male. I received 8 males and 3 females and he kept the same amount. The last time they appeared in the enclosure like in the picture is about one to two months ago. Since then I have seen a maximum of three out and about, which leads me to believe most of them are in premolt. One of the balfouri is now a mature male, which I have seen once last week. He has since disappeared again.
The big question for now is, what should I do to get the mature male out? Since they are sacmates, I am pretty confident the females won't be large enough to breed, so I'd like to get all mature males out and send them out to other breeders. Do I tear up the enclosures to get the male out? Do I wait until more of them come out again as to not disturb possible balfouri in premolt or molt?
Any advice would be appreciated!
This was successful and he let them hatch with the mother. Due to the virus we were unable to meet up for quite some time so his communal started looking like this:
December last year we were finally able to meet up to exchange "slings". They were all already quite big, 11 in total, which I put into a communal enclosure:
They rapidly turned the enclosures into a space of their own:
The "unfortunate" news here was that of the 22 slings he had, most of them were male. I received 8 males and 3 females and he kept the same amount. The last time they appeared in the enclosure like in the picture is about one to two months ago. Since then I have seen a maximum of three out and about, which leads me to believe most of them are in premolt. One of the balfouri is now a mature male, which I have seen once last week. He has since disappeared again.
The big question for now is, what should I do to get the mature male out? Since they are sacmates, I am pretty confident the females won't be large enough to breed, so I'd like to get all mature males out and send them out to other breeders. Do I tear up the enclosures to get the male out? Do I wait until more of them come out again as to not disturb possible balfouri in premolt or molt?
Any advice would be appreciated!