T-rad wrote:

Creator wrote:

T-rad wrote: See now what do you do? While I was clearing out all the breeding reports I noticed that when you pulled the egg sack early like day 15 a lot of them did not develop, then when you leave the egg sack it either gets eaten or the eggs rot.... Must be pretty dam frustrating.

I don't think pulling the sac early has anything to do with the amount of eggs hatching, I believe that it has to do with the fertilization of the eggs.

I disagree, I think it has a lot to do. I looked over a lot of breeding reports while cleaning them out, and the majority of the sacks that were pulled before the eggs turned into EWL were failures, this is from G. pulchra to balfouri to a few of the pokies and avics, so after reading all the reports I think I'm going to leave sacks with the mother, it seems people have been more successful that way.

As long as the incubator is set up fine, then pulling it early should have nothing to do with how many eggs make it.
Agree with Creator on this one.

If anyone has time on their hands go look through all the breeding reports on this forum, unless South Africans really suck at making incubators you notice a definite pattern where if the egg sack is pulled early when they are still eggs problems arise and a lot of eggs do not develop. Trust me I have done my research on this. I pulled my pederseni sack at 23 days, 100% development although some had fungus on.

I really don't know what other people do or don't do

But I will stick with my first comment

I think most people when the mate their spiders do it with oldish males or males that have not made sperm webs close to the mating

That leads to unfertilized egg sacs or sacs that only have a couple of eggs hatch.

From my experience the egg sacs that I've had so far that had a bad hatching ratio was all laid by mothers that were only mated once or the male was never witnessed making a sperm web or oldish males.

O ja... and of course your females can be sterile. I have seen females that have seen multiple males and with all the males produce infertile sacs.

I think that definitely has a factor, infertile males or old female would have an impact, but if you look at the balfouri breeding reports you will see that Scarab had 3 slings that developed from I think 4 egg sacks that he removed early, when he left it with the female he had almost 100% development. Also with the Pederseni, mine was mated with the same one as cerats, my female is about 7 years old, not sure about cerats? He pulled his early, I left mine? not saying I'm right, if i pulled it earlier I would have saved some slings from mold, but all did develop into eggs with legs. There are more examples in the breeding reports. Most of my Ts I only mate once and so far the majority have been successful besides mold getting to some and females eating others. It's just what I have observed reading through reports, every one has their own way of breeding, I find keeping the egg sack with the mother until eggs with legs develop seems to work the best.

Each to their own

(Didn't mean to hurt feelings, just stating the facts, don't be hating)

The most imported time for any tarantula egg sac is the first 24 hours when eggs gets fertilized. That's why females will wait till conditions are 100% correct. If there is any unfavorable conditions on interference eggs will not get fertilized and sperm will die before there job is done.
You can pull an egg sac on day two and still have a 100% success rate.
The earliest I have pulled an egg sac was day 10 and was my own mistake but still had a 99% hatch rate and it was a Haplopelma spp. which is a very slow developer.
Each breeder has got their own way, that works for them and they can control, and there is plenty of ways to hatch spider eggs that all works if you know how to work it. I don't use a incubator or hammock and have a very good success rate.

Okay so I have been proven wrong Also in the TKG it says that egg sacks can be pulled early and the eggs should develop... Hendrik I just want to ask when you pull the sack early do you open the sack or put the whole thing into an incubator?