Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have a spider for a few weeks and when i feed him he has the worst aim i ever seen? he never gets lucky on the first or second or third strike. i was wondering has anyone with a spider seen this type of striking before? thanks.

does your spider suffer from the almost ever present head wobble/shake/twirl that spiders are famous for? If so that could be the reason behind the missed strikes. The one great thing about spiders is that they have a great feeding responce and habbits so you can feed them pre-killed or FT and they don't have to be dead on accurate. Again I think even with this problem, spiders have soo much to offer and the twitching is just a side-effect of them being one of the best morphs out there.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of female holdbacks and several rescue normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

he doesnt really wobble his head so much but he is a little on the no so nice side. he really doesnt want to be touched and im hoping this will change soon. thanks for your post.

I have two Spiders and I have not seen any head wobble or twirling. They are good eatters and pretty good breeders too. I do have a Dumerells Boa that misses even on frozen thawed. Maybe some glasses would help. LOL

lol snakes with glasses. Not to get the debate going again but a very prominant breeder stated once that almost all if not all spiders wobble at one point in their life. Most of the time the wobble goes un-noticed as it's so minor and the snakes quickly grow out of it. I will be one breeder who will tell everyone, my spider wobbled badly when I first brought him home. This never interfered with his eating. In fact he only seemed to wobble when he was "bored" with no stimulation. As soon as his tub was pulled out he acted completely normal and when food was introduced he quit wobbling too so maybe some ritalin would fix the problem, lol jk. He is now over 600g and the wobble is barely noticable and I suspect after a little more weight is put on and time passes it will deminish completely. In daytona last year, the majority of the spiders I saw, if you observed them long enough you could see minor to major twitching/wobbling. It was an interesting observation to make. It seems that alot of poeple are afraid to admit that their spiders ever wobbled or produced wobbling babies.

On a side note, he was probably the most interested snake I had in breeding but I don't think his sperm was viable as he hooked up to 4 females and none produced. He first locked up at a few grams less than 400g to a female that was over 3000g. Now if that isn't determination I don't know what is. here is a few pics of him.

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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of female holdbacks and several rescue normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

josh all my spiders i've produced have never exhibited any of the wobble traits , but the bad aim is just being over -anxious to eat i think . I produced some nice ones this year ,Yours looks great .

Rich --OSC

Rich,

You remember last year I swore I'd never own a spider, lol. It's amazing how when you see the perfect snake you just can't help yourself and buy it. When me and my wife saw this little fella in tampa we couldn't help ourselves. I can't wait to see some bees poking their heads out of some eggs or to combo this with the vanilla trait and the citrus ghost. Hopefully this season we will produce some pastel's het citrus and some vanilla's het citrus next year. A citrus vanilla bee will rock, lol.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of female holdbacks and several rescue normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

I have some Sweet ones this year if you want another from an old friend , lol.Here are the first 4 from 6 eggs this season 2.2 Spiders , 2.0 normals .
Rich-OSC

those are very nice looking babies, you should be proud. It would be nice to add a few females to the breeding group but since we bought this 04 striped vanilla male our funds for new animals this year are almost tapped out and we have our eyes out for one or a few female yellow bellies.

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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of female holdbacks and several rescue normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Most of my aggressive feeders don't really have the best of aims - irregardless of what morph they are. Feed them f/t and you don't really have to worry about a disgruntled food item biting back.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

6.34.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.0 frogs rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.1 Lizards of unknown origin

i have one BP that misses frequently on her F/t rats, however if I heat hers up a little extra on a hot plate or under a heat lamp shes much more acurate

nt

I wouldn’t worry so much, i've had my BPs miss when then f/t rat is literally touching their pits. It’s so funny to watch. Makes me wonder how some of my animals would do in the wild.
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Dave

www.DNReptiles.com
Myspace/DNReptiles
Myspace/blog

I 100% agree with the "wobble", the majority (not all) of spiders i have ever seen all when young have had something "off" about the way they move. I have seen some very bad cases and others that are barely noticable unless you know what you are looking for. One of my adult breeders wobbled a little when he was younger but has since grown out of it, Our other adult didnt wobble at all but 2 of his off spring did earlier in the season.. It shows up sometime even in offspring whos parents never exhibited the behavior. Its just some how in the genetic makeup of the animal...Stil amazing animals regardless, and the "wobble" definatley dosent effect feeding, but i have seen it cause inacuracy ... Good luck with him he is beautiful !!

im not feeding frozen. live rats!

Make sure the food item is warm enough that the Spider can detect it well. Some times your hand, even using tongs puts out more heat pattern then the item and it will cause ball pythons to miss. This can be even more pronounced in Spiders especially when offering F/T.

John Manser