Breeding Notes

Overview of matings 2004/ 2005
Smithi mated 16/07/04 egg sac produced 01/02/05 egg sac removed 03/03/05. no development seen, placed in incubator all turned black. assumed infertile.

Smithi mated 14/10/04 egg sac produced 10/02/05 egg sac removed 10/03/05. eggs stuck together and mouldy in solid mass. Assumed conditions incorrect.

Smithi mated 28/12/04 egg sac produced 27/05/05. egg sac removed 28/06/05 found to be badly wrapped barely wrapped on one side, contents mouldy female was disturbed during construction of egg sac.

Emilia mated 13/11/04 no egg sac produced female moulted 15/05/05 only 7 months since her last moult. Possibly reason is trying a method of tank flooding , this seems to induce moulting, or male infertile.

Boehmei mated 02/01/05 no egg sac produced. Female moulted 27/07/05 10 months since her last moult.
This is second time this female has been mated and subsequently moulted. possibly infertile male, this time flooding induced moult perhaps.

Conclusions.
Whilst I assume the smithi conditions were close to being correct, the best result was infertile, this was an older male loaned, more than 6 months mature.
The second female was mated with a fresh male but she upturned her water dish which allowed the tank to dry out and she had no water, and I was reluctant to disturb her, in hind sight if I had disturbed her and replaced the water dish it may have saved the egg sac.
The freshest male was used with the last female and as she was disturbed, (a slamming door), the egg sac was badly wrapped, this was very disappointing as it should be avoidable.
With emilia I decided to try a method I had been told worked, this is to flood the tank in spring as the tank is warmed up, I usually try to stick with the natural conditions which includes a wet season in September, and only damping the tank in spring, but I thought it was worth a try. The result was the female moulted even though her abdomen was very large thought to be gravid and not due to over feeding.

Boehmei second time of mating and moulting, the first time could have been infertile male, he was old, but always worth a try. This time I again tried the tank flooding method
With the same result as with emilia, the female moulted out.
Needless to say I have given up on this method.

 

Overview of matings 2005/2006

Auratum mated 08/02/06
Baumgarteni mated 21/01/06
Baumgarteni mated 19/02/06 female is preparing to moult, a recently aquired female former moult date unknown.She will be remated after her moult though the male is now old and may no longer be fertile.
Baumgarteni mated 27/01/06
Boehmei mated 17/09/05 egg sac produced 12/06/06
Boehmei mated 30/04/06
Boehmei mated 10/05/06
Klaasi mated 31/01/06
Klaasi mated 08/02/06
Klaasi mated 20/02/06
Klaasi mated 03/03/06
Emilia mated 16/02/06
Emilia mated 20/02/06
Emilia mated 02/03/06
Emilia mated 10/03/06
Ruhnaui mated 15/03/06
Ruhnaui mated 16/04/06
Schroederi mated 18/09/05 egg sac produced 20/04/06 egg sac removed 27/05/06 nymphs present, placed in incubator and developing nicely, as at 16/06/06 nymph 2 and darkening

As you can see by the dates a lot of these matings are ‘out of season’, as they would usually be mating between September and November in the wild. This is to do with the availability of males and the moulting cycles of the females, the two females mated last year, schroederi and boehmei, have both produced egg sacs.
What I have attempted to do with this set of matings is to adjust their conditions to be more in season. So the theory is this,
After moulting the females are fed as much as they will eat for around 2 months, during this time they are mated with available males, after this time they are cooled by approximately 10 degrees, for around 2 months, food offered weekly, then they are brought gently back up to temperature over a period of approximately 4 weeks making sure they have access to water at all times, during the warming period the water dish is over filled to create a damp area and raise the humidity. Once back up to temperature feed as much as they will eat, but only one item at a time.
I have also tried to feed a varied diet as they would have in the wild, this is crickets, maggots and locusts. I have also adjusted light levels either blocking part of the tank to reduce the light or using household lighting to increase daylight hours.
Both schroederi and boehmei stopped eating around 4 weeks prior to egg sac production.
The precursor to making the egg sacs is lots of digging and clearing of substrate, this was true also with smithi last year, they clear down to solid surface before they start webbing to make the egg sac.
The time taken to construct the egg sac is around 24 hours, the only exception to this, so far, was the smithi who was disturbed, she took around 3 days .
They are seen to push hairs off the abdomen onto the first layers of webbing which will become the out side of the egg sac. This is not the flicking defense response but a very deliberate brushing downwards.
After making the egg sac all have been observed leaving the egg sac temporarily to lay down threads of silk which lead back to the position of the egg sac, I suspect this to be an early warning network as they cover all angles of approach. They will sometimes leave the egg sac to have a drink of water.
As far as disturbance is concerned I think it depends very much on the type of disturbance and also on the temperament of the female, I have witnessed the affect of disturbance when egg sacs are being made, the female starts to tear down the webbing but then returns to her task, as this is a big effort I feel it is the most important time NOT to disturb her. Once the egg sac is made noise etc does not seem to affect them, though I have not tried to open tanks etc only when removing egg sacs.
I do however feel it is important to block the sides of the tank if they are next to other tanks, as this eliminates the perceived threats to their egg sacs from other spiders. I block the sides off when they start to dig and clear the substrate.

The smithi sacs last year were removed at 30 days, schroederi sac this year was removed at 40 days .
With the lack of information on ‘the best time’ to remove an egg sac it is very much trial and error, I will hopefully remove boehmei egg sac at 40 days and will update the information with results as I have them.

Some of the females were freshly moulted and some are around 4 months into their cycle, the males used are as far as I am aware all within 3 months from their maturing moult. So this years results will hopefully shed some more light on the importance of timing from moults.
These are my notes to date and will be updated as the results are known.

for some more breeding data from another Brachypelma enthusiast.