Can any one tell me when to flood my enclosures of my mated females? Are there a" general rule of thumb" or just a guessing game?

Stef you would have to say what females it is.

It depends on the species of spider, and where the spider comes from.
The most important thing is humidity and Temperature.
The only thing I would advise, try avoid your spider dropping an egg sack in winter, with Eskom power outages and the cold it makes it a lot harder to get a successful sack.

So give your spider a cold spell and then start heating in spring time.

Oh OK The one is a Nhandu chromatus & the other a Brachypelma albopilosum

There is no recipe. There is no care sheet. There is only intuition. Replicate what happens in nature and you are on your way. THINK how things work, seasons, rainfall, abundance of food, rise in temperatures, egg sac.

Then, flooding. Be careful to make this a general rule. M balfouri wants a few drops and they are in heaven, with P fasciata you must include a life raft... The best thing to do is look (study) the rainfall patterns of the region they originate from. Just a little search, a few lines to read and a few temperatures to memorize. Once you are close to this, you are close to counting slings.

Forget formulas, LISTEN to your spiders...

That's the way it should be :thumbsup:

People are still breeding Brachypelma albopilosum ..its a sad story