ciena6618 wrote: ... so, who can give me a hand about this case. Mortality is about 20% of laeval, really?
Although there are those who will disagree, I have found that the genus
Avicularia experiences inordinately higher losses immediately after shipping, and especially if they are babies. And,
A. versicolor (a.k.a., Martinique treespider, Antilles pinktoe) has a reputation for being even more fragile than the others.
This is a curious thing to me. If I breed an
Avicularia, the babies refuse to die! If I didn't sell them, in a year or two I'd end up with dozens of them in my spider room. And, if I did sell them, my customers experienced almost no loses whatsoever. But, if I ordered in babies from Miami or Chicago, and they had to be transported by airline, my losses were similar to what you note. Apparently they get "beat up" by their handling by the airlines, and that plus improper care when they first arrive accounts for the high losses.
So, I have developed the hypothesis that
Avicularia cannot tolerate long distance shipping as well as other tarantulas. And, once you get them into your care, and they have a chance to recover, they do just fine. But, most pet shops don't do that. They unpack the shipping boxes and immediately put the baby tarantulas on display and for sale. And, the unsuspecting enthusiast buys them the next day for fear that they will be sold out in a week. And, then we hear that they lost a baby
Avicularia.
So now I am telling people, when they buy a baby
Avicularia from a pet shop, to make sure the substrate in the container is slightly damp, and then place the container somewhere in the home where it's kept at "room" temperature or slightly higher for two or three days. (Perhaps in the neighborhood of 25° C to 30° C, 77° F to 86° F.) Since most baby tarantulas are shipped in the containers that they have been living in for the past several months, there is seldom any reason to change them to larger or different quarters for some time after receiving them. So, don't change their container right away. Give them a chance to recover from the shipping first.
If you're buying tarantulas beyond the "baby" stage, they're usually shipped in other containers that are not suitable for long term care. These must be moved to more appropriate containers as soon as they arrive. First, it might help to move them into an
ICU
for two or three days. In the meantime you can be busy setting up their permanent cages.
After only a few days in an ICU, you can move your
Avicularia into its new, permanent home. But, make sure that the relative humidity is still quite high by blocking off almost all the ventilation at first. But (and this is the important part), everyday remove a little more of the cage covering to allow slightly more ventilation. This should take perhaps two weeks. This allows the
Avicularia several weeks to gradually get over the shipping and adjust from life in a tropical forest to life in an artificial cage.
While this will not prevent all deaths (if they were beat up too badly, there is nothing you can do to save them), it should reduce the mortality rate a lot.
Just a further note: Since English is a second or even third language for you, if you cannot understand what I said here, or you need clarification on some points, don't be afraid to come back and ask. (Congratulations! Your English is far, FAR better than my Chinese.)
Enjoy your beautiful, little, 8-legged jewels!
