Rose Hair Tarantula help please

[Legere]

Hi I'm new here and the main reason I'm here is to see if any of you have dealt with this before..

I have a female Rose Hair and she has a dime sized spot on her rump that appears to be dry skin? Is this a pre molting sign? After further studying her bum, I took a qtip and rubbed where it's dry looking and "fluff" came off of where it appears dry and in a large quantity... I'm so CONFUSED!!!

Another thing I have noticed as of today is that she is fiercly attacking her crickets but now not eating them... she will hunt them down and bite them and then not follow through with eating. All I can think is to take the remaining cricket out and will try again in a few days.

HER STATS:

She is approx 1year old, 3 1/2 inches long from fangs to bum and molted approx 4-5 months ago which the molt was fully intact.

She is in a ten gallon tank with a large water dish (filled with the blue jelly like substance) and I keep it filled at all times. She is a healthy eater and has a misting every so often. Her tank is not dry but has an area where there is a live oat grass plant (cat grass) keeping pet soil moist on one side of tank, on other side is drier where she has built her web.

She is a friendly (so to speak) spider and is not aggressive whatsoever to our hands but I'm concerned that for some reason she is becoming cranky.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm worried about this dry spot!!

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[BugmanPrice]

Your tarantula is going into a molt cycle. The loss of hair comes from new bristles growing under the old abdomen exoskeleton and the old ones fall off before the molt. The Q-tip probably has urticating hairs which are little hairs they can flick off the abdomen that get into the eyes, nose, and throat of predators. Everything if fine. Keep the humidity up to help her molt. When they are getting ready they won’t eat for a while, sometimes they will kill things and not eat them, but not often. If she is not eating the crickets don’t put more in for a while and take the ones out that are in there. A live cricket can harm a freshly molted tarantula by nibbling it. Good luck. Since you are pretty green this will be a good resource for you http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/

Hi I'm new here and the main reason I'm here is to see if any of you have dealt with this before..I have a female Rose Hair and she has a dime sized spot on her rump that appears to be dry skin? Is this a pre molting sign? After further studying her bum, I took a qtip and rubbed where it's dry looking and "fluff" came off of where it appears dry and in a large quantity... I'm so CONFUSED!!!

Another thing I have noticed as of today is that she is fiercly attacking her crickets but now not eating them... she will hunt them down and bite them and then not follow through with eating. All I can think is to take the remaining cricket out and will try again in a few days.

HER STATS:

She is approx 1year old, 3 1/2 inches long from fangs to bum and molted approx 4-5 months ago which the molt was fully intact.

She is in a ten gallon tank with a large water dish (filled with the blue jelly like substance) and I keep it filled at all times. She is a healthy eater and has a misting every so often. Her tank is not dry but has an area where there is a live oat grass plant (cat grass) keeping pet soil moist on one side of tank, on other side is drier where she has built her web.

She is a friendly (so to speak) spider and is not aggressive whatsoever to our hands but I'm concerned that for some reason she is becoming cranky.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm worried about this dry spot!!

 

[Matt K]

Good call, Bugman.

 

[Keith]

She's a beauty!

 

[Tongue Flicker]

That's just a bald spot. Even after a new molt, it would sometimes still look too shiny but that's just normal