P. irminia Sling in Critical Condition After Damage While Moulting

[jimbo john]

If we could avoid scorning me for my idiotic mistake it'd be appreciated.

TL: DR version : I have a 3rd/4th instar P. irminia sling basically immobilized from damage due to moving it after moulting. Keep it as is? Remove legs? Or kill it? The moral dilemmas. If I chose to keep it alive I will need to crush roaches to feed it myself.

Long version: I heat my tarantulas with some thin bags of water on top of a heat mat with a thermostat controlled by a thermometer in between two overlapping bags (not the main topic of discussion in this thread). So, I left for town for a few days. When I got back, the setup had been moved and I realized the thermometer was above the water bags causing the thermostat to crank heat out. It reached upward of 92F. Around the same time I saw my P. irminia sling moulting... ~1.5" above the bottom of its burrow in a tunnel at the entrance to its burrow. I saw it with full colors, a tiny abdomen, and the molt still attached to its abdomen about half way in a bone dry enclosure with its legs slightly curled. What I assumed was: it moulted a day or two before I got back and dehydrated while/after moulting, being so small in that heat. I put a few drops of water near it and waited a while. It didn't drink. I tried blowing softly on it to invoke a response, nothing happened. At this point I assumed the worst. I used a paint brush to scoop it up and went to put it on its back on a table to give it water manually. It fell about an inch onto its back when I went to do this. I gave it some water and after a few minutes it began to twitch a little. I then carefully moved it back into its enclosure in the corner it sits in after adding water to the substrate and putting some small water drops near it. A day later it still hadn't moved. I was concerned and blew softly onto it again, to try to invoke a response. It flailed all its legs but didn't move. I manually gave it water a few more times yesterday to make sure it still wasn't dehydrated. It doesn't seem to be dehydrated anymore. The issue is that I think the small drop severely damaged its legs, 3 of the rear legs barely function and the rest are unable to support the weight of the sling, it can barely crawl with all of its effort. I'm now faced with the moral dilemma of keeping it alive in its current (terrible) condition, doing that but removing the more damaged legs, or putting it out of its misery. Thoughts? Ultimately the decision is my own to make, but I want some others input before making the decision.

Before I get crap for the mistake, I already learned my lesson (don't f*** with a moulting tarantula, especially a sling, because they are more fragile than nitroglycerin covered glass threads micrometers thick) and any such replies will be disregarded. Mind that I'm not a breeder with tons of these slings and that this is one of my pets. I would likely not buy another should this little fella croak.

Given that it just molted a few days ago, it will probably molt in another month and a half to two months if it is able to survive that long, should I decide to keep it alive.

 

[swimbait]

No need to kill it (especially with fire??) if it is in fact alive and makes it to next molt it should be okay. Keep it in its current place and keep hydrated. I think the other lesson to be learned is not to manually heat a tarantula unless it involves heating the whole room. Heat pads, lamps, whatever heating water contraption you had going, they're all bad and can be life threatening to tarantulas. Hope you're sling pulls through

 

[MassExodus]

I'd try to keep it alive, and leave the legs alone.

 

[jimbo john]

No need to kill it (especially with fire??) if it is in fact alive and makes it to next molt it should be okay. Keep it in its current place and keep hydrated. I think the other lesson to be learned is not to manually heat a tarantula unless it involves heating the whole room. Heat pads, lamps, whatever heating water contraption you had going, they're all bad and can be life threatening to tarantulas. Hope you're sling pulls through

I would, but being a broke college student is a thing and the electric heating in our house is pretty expensive. Aside from this one incident it has worked fantastic for me. The water gets rid of the hot spots of the heat mat and the thermostat is reasonably accurate. With that being said, the thermal gradients of a colder room but warm t enclosures is much greater than simply heating the room. I think the solution to my setup is just to tape the thermometer in place. It should help to get a more accurate reading while keeping the thermometer from moving as well.

 

[micheldied]

Several things; is the molt still stuck to it? What exactly is the condition of the sling; is it on its legs, but unable to move just the legs properly, or is it completely immobile (no movement, not even in the chelicerae)?

A sling with damaged legs will usually drop its own legs if they're a real burden, though sometimes they don't. I wouldn't pull them off, it's unnecessary and won't fix anything.

What you can do for now is make liquid out of its prey (crickets, mealworms, whatever, just turn it into soup) and use a dropper to drop some on the T's mouth, or try to get a small dish of it or something under the T for it to consume. Do the same with water. Keep the enclosure moist. If it does eat, then there's definitely a big chance it survives. You'll want to powerfeed it to molt.

 

[jimbo john]

Several things; is the molt still stuck to it? What exactly is the condition of the sling; is it on its legs, but unable to move just the legs properly, or is it completely immobile (no movement, not even in the chelicerae)?

A sling with damaged legs will usually drop its own legs if they're a real burden, though sometimes they don't. I wouldn't pull them off, it's unnecessary and won't fix anything.

What you can do for now is make liquid out of its prey (crickets, mealworms, whatever, just turn it into soup) and use a dropper to drop some on the T's mouth, or try to get a small dish of it or something under the T for it to consume. Do the same with water. Keep the enclosure moist. If it does eat, then there's definitely a big chance it survives. You'll want to powerfeed it to molt.

It can move, barely. It can crawl a slight bit but prefers where its sitting right now. Its chelicerea are fine I think but it would likely have trouble getting any prey to them without me mushing it and putting it on them myself.

On a side note, do tarantulas get rid of excess water? I've seen some fat abdomens before. But I've never really seen one excrete just water.

 

[micheldied]

It can move, barely. It can crawl a slight bit but prefers where its sitting right now. Its chelicerea are fine I think but it would likely have trouble getting any prey to them without me mushing it and putting it on them myself.

On a side note, do tarantulas get rid of excess water? I've seen some fat abdomens before. But I've never really seen one excrete just water.

You'll have to place the food right under it, or drip it onto the mouth. They only excrete solid waste. I believe most water is used up for metabolic processes, though I'm sure some of it is lost via respiration as well. I could be wrong.

 

[Kymura]

Love some sort of an update on this.

 

[SasyStace]

Leave the T alone. Do away with your water bag method and spend 10 bucks on a space heater that will heat your entire place up with out risk to your T's regardless of how well it's worked in the past- it's clearly not a safe method as you've sadly learned. Your Sling will most likely go into another early molt and repair it's self. Also I would suggest you do a little reading on your T- the fact that you intended to pull the legs off yourself tells me you need to do a bit of studying and spending more time in here being active asking questions. Good Luck with your T- the P. Irminia is a very hardy T one of my personal favs and if you decided to kill this T- do not ever purchase another one again. Good Luck

 

[jimbo john]

Leave the T alone. Do away with your water bag method and spend 10 bucks on a space heater that will heat your entire place up with out risk to your T's regardless of how well it's worked in the past- it's clearly not a safe method as you've sadly learned. Your Sling will most likely go into another early molt and repair it's self. Also I would suggest you do a little reading on your T- the fact that you intended to pull the legs off yourself tells me you need to do a bit of studying and spending more time in here being active asking questions. Good Luck with your T- the P. Irminia is a very hardy T one of my personal favs and if you decided to kill this T- do not ever purchase another one again. Good Luck

That was just a smidge pretentious, no but seriously talk down to others who know less than you, it makes 'em feel welcome and comfortable ya asshole. I never really intended to pull it's legs off, I was trying to think of possible things to do to help it. After thinking it through I decided that would do more harm than good. Also had you read the few previous posts you'd know why I'm not going to crank a 2kw space heater all day every day. 140w is over 10x cheaper and works just fine too. Not that it isn't more ghetto than a just a space heater. You're more than welcome to pay my electric bill though. I figured I would post on a board like this because there are definitely more knowledgeable people about the topic than myself, who have spent thousands of hours of their lives, like you, observing and reading about these creatures. [Edit]

 

[SasyStace]

Oohh grow up you lil twat. My response was just that a response. I'm not your mother I'm not here to cater to your lil boy feelings, I'm here to assist when I can. I stand by my post, you bipolar dunce. Save your money and invest in a therapist.

 

[jimbo john]

Love some sort of an update on this.

I left it in its enclosure and it hasn't left the corner but has reoriented itself a few times. I tried giving it a tiny newly hatched b. lat roach (probably 1/5 it's body length) alive and it wasn't even able to grasp it with it's pedipalps. So I, instead, opted to chop up one of em and squished out some guts to put on it's mouth. I think it ate it. So really nothing has changed, it's still doing as ****ty as ever since the molt. I'm probably not going to post another update until the next molt or until it dies (but hopefully not this), because it's pretty much going to be doing exactly the same until one of those things happens. But when something significant happens, I'll let you know.

 

[swimbait]

Agreed, if you can't take the slightest bit of something you don't wanna hear on the internet without flipping out I'd ha

Oohh grow up you lil twat. My response was just that a response. I'm not your mother I'm not here to cater to your lil boy feelings, I'm here to assist when I can. I stand by my post, you bipolar dunce. Save your money and invest in a therapist.

Agreed, if you can't take the slightest bit of something you don't wanna hear on the internet without flipping out I'd hate to see how you react in real life lmao

 

[jimbo john]

Oohh grow up you lil twat. My response was just that a response. I'm not your mother I'm not here to cater to your lil boy feelings, I'm here to assist when I can. I stand by my post, you bipolar dunce. Save your money and invest in a therapist.

Well in one post, you managed to make yourself come off as an [jerk]; NJ! By the way, I love the immediate response though. Get a [ ]life. I'm done with you.

[Edit]

 

[corij]

post a few photos if you can

 

[jimbo john]

Oohh grow up you lil twat. My response was just that a response. I'm not your mother I'm not here to cater to your lil boy feelings, I'm here to assist when I can. I stand by my post, you bipolar dunce. Save your money and invest in a therapist.

Also, couldn't help but notice you spelled sassy wrong, are you illiterate? Or just a 13 year old at heart who thinks misspelling and alliteration are cute.

Alright. Now I'm done.

 

[jimbo john]

post a few photos if you can

Unfortunately I don't have a camera, the one on my phone got smashed. Trust me, you probably don't want to see how bad they come out.

 

[corij]

youre lashing out jimbo, its to be expected when life doesnt go to plan. id think you could place really tiny pieces of food right by the spiders mouth parts each day using a magnifying glass to make sure observe if it eats . you may be in for weeks of doin it but so what , itll be worth it teach you patience

 

[jimbo john]

Agreed, if you can't take the slightest bit of something you don't wanna hear on the internet without flipping out I'd ha


Agreed, if you can't take the slightest bit of something you don't wanna hear on the internet without flipping out I'd hate to see how you react in real life lmao

I'm pretty quiet in real life, I'm one of those people who becomes an [butt] online because it's not face to face.

 

[jimbo john]

youre lashing out jimbo, its to be expected when life doesnt go to plan. id think you could place really tiny pieces of food right by the spiders mouth parts each day using a magnifying glass to make sure observe if it eats . you may be in for weeks of doin it but so what , itll be worth it teach you patience

I am, I'm an internet [butt]. It's how I get out all my repressed rage. [Forget] patients though, I could work for an hour and buy a few more of these guys. Personally, it's more about the intrinsic value of life and the extent to which one should go out of their way to preserve it.