The Big Night!

Firstly, I've forgotten to bring my camera to work (where I am writing this blog) so I'll post up photos tomorrow. With that out the way...

I think I might have raced home a little last night (once I'd got through the Bristol traffic), hopefully I didn't go through any speed cameras! I was pretty excited to get the spiderling home.

When I did get home I placed the sealed delivery box on my bed with the duvet spread out flat. This would create a soft landing should the spiderling make a dash and also a large surface area for me to catch it in should that happen. I had considered doing the unwrap in the bath (plug in hole!) but opted for the bed as the set up was in the bedroom and everything was close to hand.

I used a pair of sharp nail scissors to cut through the tape on the box and opened it up to find it well packed with polystyrene chips, in the middle of this was a small pot containing a soft tissue, with my new sling sitting on the top looking at me!

The little fella was about 10mm across and incredibly cute. It really was hard to imagine that if all goes well it will become a 6 inch tarantula.

I took the prepared sling pot from the enclosure, removed the lid and cautiously opened the pot containing the spiderling. I tilted one to the other, and with a bit of very gentle coaxing the baby B.boehmei stepped in to its new home!

It was a thrilling moment, and I left the pot on the side for a few moments before returning it to the heated and humidified terrarium so I could watch his/her first reactions to its new surroundings. In typical spider fashion the little sling walked round and round the pot getting a feel for the new environment it found itself in. It tried a bit of unsuccessful climbing and investigated the feeding vial which was hanging out of the sky in his new world.

Once I was happy that baby spid was happy, and indeed healthy, I placed the spiderling pot back into the enclosure near the heat mat. The tiny tarantula continued its tour of the pot and I turned out the lights and left him/her be for a bit.

I've decided I'm going to refer to the spiderling as a "her" from here on in, I have no idea of the gender yet but it will just be easier!

I checked on her regularly during the evening and she had settled down a lot. This morning she was resting at the side of the pot near where some condensation was formed, perhaps she was thirsty? I watched her for a bit until she moved (worried dad syndrome!) and got on with getting ready for work.

I was a little disappointed that the burrow starter hole I provided hadn't been used. Maybe she will investigate it more today? I'm a bit worried that I might have packed the substrate down too tightly, I really pressed it down hard - my thinking was that this will prevent burrow collapse but maybe I over did it? Any advice on that will be very welcome.

Tonight I will give the spider her first feed with me. I wanted to give her a rest after her ordeal so didn't feed her last night. I have pinhead crickets, and my goodness they are tiny! Just a couple of millimetres long. It's going to be an ordeal catching one and transferring it to the sling pot. I think I'll place the feeding vial in the cricket box and wait for one to crawl in. I fed the little crickets last night on special cricket food and they all swarmed over it - they must have been hungry!

So all is well at the moment and I hope it continues to go that way. I'll post the pictures up tomorrow of last nights arrival.