Now
day when people think about purchasing spiders, they tend to only think about
keeping them as pets but believe it of not some think about breeding. When it
comes to buying the spider, if you purchase a young aged spider the sex can be
hard to determine as because both males and females look the same. This is only
while they are still immature as it's only later in life the sex organs develop
and we can tell the sex apart. The male sexual organs don't become effective
until there final moult and this is when a spider is more likely to look for a
female, not that breeding spiders during the mid to latter stage cannot be
achieved just might be harder.
Beginners guide to spider breeding:
Breeding spiders is no easy task and even experts can get it wrong, the best
advice I can give you is to try with common spiders like garden spiders.
**Please not this is a hand on task so please DO NOT try with spiders that
contain venom that affects humans.**
To tell a male from a female is easy, the male has rather large palps at the
front between the front legs. This applies to breeding any spider. To start
with trying to breed spiders you need to introduce the male slowly to the female
so the male has time to do the courting procedure. This is normally plucking
certain threads of silk on the web to tell the female “I am a male, please
don’t eat me” if the female accepts him then after a bit they should start to
mate and when they finished the male becomes a lovely meal. The reason you
should try this on common spiders is because the courting is the most dangerous
part of a spiders life and can often result in lose of body parts OR even
death. Another trick would to feed the female before entering the male as she
might not eat the male.
Once
you have managed to breed the common spiders successfully and got the experience
you can start with other types like the ones you pay for. When you get your
spider and it's young the telling part could still be difficult so best to ask
the shop keeper if your not sure, not that he might be able to help. A male in
the final stage where the fangs and palps get bigger referred to the ‘final
moult’ and all the sexual organs becomes bigger and they are referred to as
being "sexually mature".
Note:
When buying spiders try not to go for spiders to young as they are very hard to
keep, your best bet is to go for a ‘teenager’.
Breeding part II
To
keep a male and female for breeding you must follow some simple rules and they
are: They must be kept apart at all times and you need a big area for the
breeding, maybe a large box that you can insert a divider into and start off
with the female in the box so she can make her web and claim it as hers. After
a few days put the divider in but try not breaking the female’s web if there is
one and add the male in the box, he will find her sent and hopefully her web and
start courting by plucking the threads. This could go on for hours so be
patient and all you need to do is pull out the male if he gets attacked, be
careful you don't get bitten or hairs flicking at you so try wearing gloves and
glasses/goggles. This should be the last result as it might have the effect of
not breeding again that year, the other time you should take the male away is
after sex as a lot of females will go DINNER.
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