I don't think one would consciously condition a spider to moult. If you do, it might go hand in hand with power feeding, perhaps to have one sex "catch up" with the opposite sex in order to breed.

Conditioning for breeding would be intentional. IMO, simulating the seasons and providing food and a good "egg laying" environment. With P metallica, this seems to be slightly different to other Pokies, the exception perhaps P subfusca.

Afterthought: I am still baffled by the reduction of time between moults just because of a "new" environment. I am somewhat certain that the spider that made me wonder would still be sitting inside her log with her fat arse, did I not move her to another enclosure. As others stated, this happens regularly and the question remains... WHY?

I have noticed that if I fetch my new slings which are sent by post the day they arrive, I have very few cases of ecdysis shortly thereafter. If, however, I only get to the post office 4 or 5 days after they were mailed, the occurrence of ecdysis reaches about 50%. This could possibly be ascribed to the high humidity in the plastic tubes with the damp tissue - a thought.

Could it be that the season has an effect? If she feels that winter is closer
she would rather moult than drop and vice versa? I know we try to manipulate
the temperatures sometimes but I'm sure they would feel the difference in humidity
of our winter season coming on. If the enclosure is well ventilated there is no way
they can't feel the change of season.

So, has there been anyone to get an egg sac (from a Tarantula, Scarab) during our wintertime? If so, my argument
has no ground.

You receive spiders by post? How could you...

One factor seems to be gaining ground... A sudden change in temperature/humidity. Because I use live plants, I always water the new enclosure somewhat more to settle the plants. It is a valid point thus far, I think (which I seldom do).

I have 3 G pulchripes slings. They used to molt simultaneously all the time, until I rehoused one of them to a larger enclosure.
It molted soon after rehousing a few weeks ago already, the other 2 are still just hanging around.

I also have 2 P cambridgeis. They have similar setups and used to molt within a day from each other all the time.
A while back, I added more moisture to the one than the other. Both made molt mats on the same day, but only the one molted. The other is still just hanging around. So moisture must somehow trigger the molting process.

frootbat wrote:

So, has there been anyone to get an egg sac (from a Tarantula, Scarab) during our wintertime? If so, my argument
has no ground.

My P. cancerides dropped mid May last year. Not entirely winter, but close to it. She was mated October the year before, so she walked around with junk in her trunk through summer :huh: