Molt!

Jeez, almost another month again.

Unfortunately I'm having somewhat of a bad, cranky week. Since my spiders love me and wanted to cheer me up, Smithy surprised me this morning with a molt! Ever since she arrived last July I have witnessed every molt, except one, which was a bad one. She didn't fully escape her exoskeleton and then hid for about a month.

I woke up this morning and checked on them, as per our usual routine. To my utter delight she was writhing in the substrate on her back, fresh out of her skin! Ahhh the new suit is fabulous and oh my, has she grown up! I don't think she has changed suits since January! This one is definitely noticeable. I'm very excited to see how much bigger she'll become after she hardens.

Mustapha is magnificent as usual. I can't believe when he arrived as a freebie I considered giving him away. I picked up some superworms last weekend for a change of pace. He likey! I'll put one in, turn my back and hear a thud against the side of his terrarium. That would be him going in for the kill. He's an extremely enthusiastic eater! He's also incredibly big, hyper and gorgeous. For a spider he has a lot of personality.

One more thing I wanted to mention: A couple of weeks ago Smithy went into fast and I hadn't realized this, so I kept putting crickets in with her that hid, and were not eaten. Eventually she had about three in with her and so I had to take her terrarium off the bookshelf, to fish them out. She didn't like that one bit. She flicked hairs at me. Luckily I didn't get hit but it made me really nervous. I mean, we have birds in the same room and cats that wander everywhere in the house. I knew that was a risk when I decided to keep tarantulas but now it's real, and I'm nervous.

I'll have to do some research on this matter. It's too bad there is not a whole lot of tarantula keeping information out there, aside from the basics.

Anyway, hopefully I'll write again soon with updates!