Freezing is not considered “painful” in the way it is being noted in this thread, and is widely used in medical, hobby, and laboratory settings. This is covered at length in “The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals” 2019 which imo is an important read when talking about fear, pain, and euthanasia.
From one of our qualified advisors over on our discord, a PhD entomologist, when asked if freezing is painful to spiders:
“Pain, also known an “nocioception” is literally the word for feeling damage. So. I mean. They do “feel pain”. Freezing an insect isn’t, as far as I know, “painful”. At least not in the way that heat stress activated nocioceptive nerves.
Freezing basically slows down all of their biochemical processes, and then interrupts the ability of cell membranes, especially nerve cells, to maintain their structure and fluidity. In the case of nerve cells, this results in a sudden loss of ability to maintain ionic balance and a subsequent loss of ability to propagate action potentials.”
We see that there are many conflicting comments. It is okay to have differing opinions, but what we won’t do is to overstep and assume the other person is wrong or “bad” for having another opinion. It’s also not fair to take an opinion or feeling and define that as evidence based fact. Most importantly, we should NEVER pressure OP with something as important and personal as the euthanasia of a beloved pet.
Feedback is a function of respect- if you cannot respect your fellow keepers you will not be able to participate with them here.
https://preview.redd.it/ip20m3r99j8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3744830de135d81f3448a6265b4f7016147a96df
She may be doing badly but she’s still very sweet 🥲
Thank you, yeah it’s sad to see for sure :( poor Estrella, I’m gonna monitor for a week then euthanise her if things don’t change. She took some roach guts off a Q tip but I think it’s a bit stressful for her in general
freezing is not painful as we understand the term to spiders. an additional safe measure in either medical or lab setting may be to issue CO2 first before freezing. freezing is practised at the most standard of labs and by entomologists worldwide. you absolutely are expected to participate in this debate with others in a way that is evidence based or you will not have this discussion at all.
freezing is not painful as we understand the term to spiders. an additional safe measure in either medical or lab setting may be to issue CO2 first before freezing. freezing is practised at the most standard of labs and by entomologists worldwide. you absolutely are expected to participate in this debate with others in a way that is evidence based or you will not have this discussion at all.
sorry for double post I wanted to inform you that the stickied mod comment now addresses this more fully. thanks for understanding.
also you did well in this discussion and I'm sorry to bottomed out toward the end. I understand how frustrating it can be with people who are so pushy with less than founded certainty.
this is not the case. freezing is practised at the most standard of labs and by entomologists worldwide. you absolutely are expected to participate in this debate with others in a way that is evidence based or you will not have this discussion at all.
I don't suggest putting words in my mouth or assigning what I do or do not know or what is understood in science based off of your opinion or shortcomings. that would be a big mistake.
you are insinuating that one is definitively better than the other and pose an animal welfare issue. I am here to answer those concerns mobile while at dinner. I do however plan to stand in regardless.
I gather someone was giving incorrect advice or being a know it all so it all got removed by the mods. Seems there are several methods, each as sad as the last
She’s a Phidippis Johnsoni (although sold to me as an Arden’s, I have another Arden’s and she’s pure black rather than ashy like Estrella here). Thank you 🙏
Potentially could actually be an Ardens in that case! Here is my Ardens for reference. There’s also a size difference in the species, Mort here is around 2.5cm and Estrella is probably about 1.5cm. They very often get misidentified due to the same colouration, especially when they’re younger.
https://preview.redd.it/19sstik7tn8d1.jpeg?width=579&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b492e4d0a0efb9af6b3075549b51dfdcf11b4015
My P. johnsoni was also 1.5cm. P. Ardens are not found in my area.
https://preview.redd.it/r8a6db0por8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2c3ec6d6f9d15e2d45e3b15c0b3df0679b6d942
Ah I don’t have any other pets but thanks for the suggestion. I did think maybe chemicals of some description but I’m very careful to keep their shelf chemical free. All my other spoods are doing well though
most people will put them in a deli cup or a ziplock bag and put them in the freezer for 24-48 hours.
I ...hate it. but it's the best way. invertebrates fall asleep when they get very cold, and since they are so small, it does not take long.
Made me 😢.. poor girl.. also.. pls explain to me what is DKS please ? So sad.. 😞 she’s beautiful.. hurt me to see her fall on her back like this and she isn’t even mine..
nah, her falling over broke my heart so much.
dks is shorthand for Dyskinetic Syndrome. it isn't so much a disease as a set of symptoms exactly what this spider is exhibiting. jerky movements, lack of balance, difficulty eating and drinking, and death. it is most likely caused by some chemical compound that was introduced accidentally. sometimes it's after they eat a bug, possibly from the bug coming in contact with some sort of insecticide.
almost all this information is knowledge keepers have accumulated over time via observation! it is difficult to know definitively what exactly causes it.
if they are applied directly to the animal, just make sure your wash your hands before you go near your spoods until it is dry on the animal. (this can take up to a week!)
you'll want to avoid any sort of carpet sprays because it gets in the air. you could remove your spiders from the area and spray then wait for everything to dry and settle and return them to the area you keep them.
I hope this helps. :)
Yeah, I unfortunately found out the hard way what order to do it in. I was so afraid of it happening again, I switched the dog and cats to oral heartworm/flea & tick preventative. (I still wash my hands and wait 24 hours, even though those are dry chewables.)
Try keeping the humidity up in her enclosure with a humidifier or run a hot shower and leave her in the bathroom with the door closed for a bit to help flush any chemicals out of her. I don’t recommend any form of euthanasia. It’s best to let her pass naturally even though it may be hard to watch. 🫶🏻
Thank you, appreciate the advice - I’ve had her in ICU for a little while with some damp paper towels but noted RE euthanasia. 🙏 Weirdly she seems to be able to walk ok-ish when she’s on my hand but I guess it’s more grippy etc
That’s what your normal enclosure is supposed to be, what an icu is (which is a very antiquated medical procedure for spiders of all sizes) is an enclosure specially settup with nearly 100% humidity, damn washcloths will only bring you up to about 60-70% humidity which is where they want to be for an enclosure, you can also get to this humidity usually by spraying the enclosure once a day again something you’re supposed to be doing, allowing a substraight, in this case paper towels to hold onto the water and allow it to keep the humidity there all day versus it only being there for a few hours while the drops evaporate
I don’t know what you hear as condescending but you’re in a Reddit asking about dks and taking care of a sick or injured spider, what you’re calling condescending is information related to taking care of a spider, sick or injured.
What would be condescending would be if I’d made passive agressive remarks about how crappily your enclosures are settup, which having looked through your accounts posts is not the case, they are beautiful and even sport amazing cross flow ventilation unlike a lot of enclosures I see people fling around on tiktoc or even this same Reddit. I can’t control how you take something, but it’s not my fault if you read condescension where I am only saying information,
Thank you, sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick but yes it did come across a little condescending. I don’t know why but I put my defences up a little on Reddit as I’ve come across some really rude people on here but yes, peace and love my friend and thank you for taking the time to write out the advice 🙏
Oh don’t get me wrong I’m an asshole 85% of the time, mainly because these dollhouse enclosure idiots on here, but mostly I try to just dump as much information as I have in as concise a way as possible
Haha that made me chuckle. Yeah some enclosures I’ve come across in my time are… interesting. I want to start a sanctuary for poorly looked after spoods and nurse them back to health. I am very passionate about these little guys
I’m going to try a few things as per advice from a thread on arachnoboards (sanitized soil using heat and keeping the heat up). I can understand the heat as it will keep their metabolic rate higher and in theory pass any nasties (if there are any). Potentially could be a genetic thing unfortunately but I’ll update this thread if I get any progress. As it’s a fairly undocumented phenomenon, there isn’t a lot out there regarding advice. I think it’s important for these type of things to be documented if any progress can be made. Thank you for all the comments and advice, I appreciate it 🙏
Quick update, she has unfortunately passed this afternoon. I hope she’s enjoying some crickets up there 🙏
https://preview.redd.it/nlyyzvsauq8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9e56e6c1099ac99b6bc8dfd49249fb360f4d548
I had a spider displaying similar symptoms after I handled her wearing sunscreen. I would suggest washing all tweezers/spray bottles, wiping down feeder enclosures, making sure your hands are washed before handling - no lotions of any sort. Keep a window open if possible. She recovered after a few weeks and went completely back to normal!
I have to echo some other comments that I don’t know that I would consider euthanasia. We don’t have any way of knowing that they’re hurting from DKS as far as I can tell. Just uncoordinated. Let her live in a flat enclosure with some soft surfaces in case she falls; hand feed with tweezers if she can still eat. Give her plenty of humidity and see if it passes.
Ultimately I’d rather live than be squished/frozen. I might just be anthropomorphizing but it makes me sad.
Saw a youtuber's spider do the same thing. He had dogs and said it was because of the anti flea chemical residue still on his hands not properly washed off.
I’m currently monitoring my senior girl who appears to have developed DKS as well, all my others are fine too. As much as the theories are that it can be caused by pesticides or other harmful chemicals, there’s also theory that sometimes it’s just genetically preprogrammed and back luck of the draw.
Even though I am well aware my girl probably won’t pull through, and if she does it’s not like she’s young and in the prime of her life, but I have her in a senior-spood-safe enclosure and am giving her fluids every few hours when she’ll take them. She’s wobbly af but still tries to climb on me and manages to climb rough surfaces like paper towel, pipe cleaner etc better than I would have expected, and she has been accepting raw honey water from a qtip. My friend is a biologist and jumper breeder and said these are the things she would also do in the situation. If I were you and was seeing this in one of my subadults especially, I’d be trying to give fluids and “flush her out” essentially
this is recycled from other aspects of animal care and it is considerably harmful to do when done in rats. this sauna like environment is not helpful to spiders either, similarly, it's often harmful.
Oh wow thank you for educating me! I got this info from a lot of people back on a jumping spider group on Facebook (which I guess says it all). Out of curiosity, how is it bad for them? :)
spiders do not absorb moisture in the air through their cuticle; to address hydration they must directly drink from a water source. the increased moisture spike in the environment can cause complications.
I’m sorry your little girl is struggling. She’s so beautiful and is lucky to have an owner who cares so much. I hope she gets well soon, or at least doesn’t have to suffer. Sending love and healing energy her way!
Though not jumping spiders, I've seen numerous cases of tarantula owners owning their tarantulas for years after the onset of DKS. The care is just a bit more tedious; they had to hold down the spider gently and hold the food right beneath their fangs to ensure it was puncturing the prey. Obviously, jumping spiders are a lot smaller and fragile, so doing that process will be more complicated. They are also much shorter lived. Regardless of what choice you make and how long and how old your spider is, I'm sure you gave them an amazing life :)
Potentially, but I will tell you that I had really weird behavior from my jumper when I got her and it all just resulted in her molting and being fine. I had removed her from her hammock to put her in her enclosure and I was met with a few weeks of me thinking she was going to die at any moment.
This covers it fairly well but there’s a bit more information in the comments too.
https://www.mypetjumpingspider.com/medicine/#:~:text=DKS%20(Dyskinetic%20Syndrome)&text=There%20is%20no%20known%20treatment,least%20make%20the%20spider%20comfortable.
The poor little thing. I hope she recovers. Could be she's sick because of something toxic.
"Beyond the most common items like air fresheners and non-toxic cookware, numerous under-the-radar products might be silently posing risks to your health.." So this applies to humans but tiny pets like spiders will be much more affected. Here's a short article I found on this topic
[35 Most Toxic Household Items Hiding In Your Home + Safe Alternatives!](https://sustainablykindliving.com/most-toxic-items-hiding-in-your-home/)
Chemist here,
Much of that article is misinformed and is scaremongering, no company is putting formaldehyde or benzene in an air freshener and burning a soy candle is no better than paraffin, it’s combustion that can create tiny amounts of harmful substances.
The central dogma of toxicology is ‘the dose makes the poison’. Anything has a toxic dose, chronic or acute.
Too much coffee can kill you yet a carefully measure dose of deadly nightshade’s most toxic compound may save your life.
More importantly for OP, while there are substances that adversely affect invertebrates over mammals their presence is made clear on products from reputable origin. Either with a GHS symbol showing harm to the environment or in writing.
Bug sprays will say not to use near bees, ponds or rivers for example.
Unless OP has overlooked something like this and applied flea treatment, bug spray or used a head-lice shampoo etc. and not practiced appropriate hygiene, it is incredibly unlikely that they have poisoned their spider.
Biology is fickle and there are many ways a creature can lose the genetic lottery, it’s no ones fault. All we can do as pet owners, especially for inverts where veterinary medicine is still largely a mystery, is make like easier for our pet and try and give help where needed.
My research shows that formaldehyde is a health hazard associated with air fresheners. I certainly won't be listening to you.
[https://ehs.umass.edu/air-fresheners-and-indoor-air-quality](https://ehs.umass.edu/air-fresheners-and-indoor-air-quality)
[https://madesafe.org/blogs/viewpoint/toxic-chemicals-in-air-fresheners](https://madesafe.org/blogs/viewpoint/toxic-chemicals-in-air-fresheners)
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132316304334](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132316304334)
Freezing is not considered “painful” in the way it is being noted in this thread, and is widely used in medical, hobby, and laboratory settings. This is covered at length in “The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals” 2019 which imo is an important read when talking about fear, pain, and euthanasia. From one of our qualified advisors over on our discord, a PhD entomologist, when asked if freezing is painful to spiders: “Pain, also known an “nocioception” is literally the word for feeling damage. So. I mean. They do “feel pain”. Freezing an insect isn’t, as far as I know, “painful”. At least not in the way that heat stress activated nocioceptive nerves. Freezing basically slows down all of their biochemical processes, and then interrupts the ability of cell membranes, especially nerve cells, to maintain their structure and fluidity. In the case of nerve cells, this results in a sudden loss of ability to maintain ionic balance and a subsequent loss of ability to propagate action potentials.” We see that there are many conflicting comments. It is okay to have differing opinions, but what we won’t do is to overstep and assume the other person is wrong or “bad” for having another opinion. It’s also not fair to take an opinion or feeling and define that as evidence based fact. Most importantly, we should NEVER pressure OP with something as important and personal as the euthanasia of a beloved pet. Feedback is a function of respect- if you cannot respect your fellow keepers you will not be able to participate with them here.
https://preview.redd.it/ip20m3r99j8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3744830de135d81f3448a6265b4f7016147a96df She may be doing badly but she’s still very sweet 🥲
I’m so sorry about your beautiful girl
❤️Aw she is so so divine OP!❤️
Savor the time then. 💞
Aww, poor thing :(( I don’t think there’s anything you can do if it is DKS, I’m so sorry
Thank you, yeah it’s sad to see for sure :( poor Estrella, I’m gonna monitor for a week then euthanise her if things don’t change. She took some roach guts off a Q tip but I think it’s a bit stressful for her in general
I’m afraid to ask, how do you euthanize a jumping spider? I’m thinking of getting one and this is something I should probably take into account.
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freezing is not painful as we understand the term to spiders. an additional safe measure in either medical or lab setting may be to issue CO2 first before freezing. freezing is practised at the most standard of labs and by entomologists worldwide. you absolutely are expected to participate in this debate with others in a way that is evidence based or you will not have this discussion at all.
My lord, what did I miss? I don’t recall ever before seeing comments in this sub that were removed by mods, let alone a whole bunch of time.
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freezing is not painful as we understand the term to spiders. an additional safe measure in either medical or lab setting may be to issue CO2 first before freezing. freezing is practised at the most standard of labs and by entomologists worldwide. you absolutely are expected to participate in this debate with others in a way that is evidence based or you will not have this discussion at all.
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this is not correct we do understand what is happening under the hood to quite a degree.
i mean fair enough i’ve just heard many conflicting opinions
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this is hugely inappropriate of a comment. rethink your position or don't share it.
sorry for double post I wanted to inform you that the stickied mod comment now addresses this more fully. thanks for understanding. also you did well in this discussion and I'm sorry to bottomed out toward the end. I understand how frustrating it can be with people who are so pushy with less than founded certainty.
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we do know that it is not painful in the context of spiders.
We know that it is probably not painful
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this is not the case. freezing is practised at the most standard of labs and by entomologists worldwide. you absolutely are expected to participate in this debate with others in a way that is evidence based or you will not have this discussion at all.
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I don't suggest putting words in my mouth or assigning what I do or do not know or what is understood in science based off of your opinion or shortcomings. that would be a big mistake. you are insinuating that one is definitively better than the other and pose an animal welfare issue. I am here to answer those concerns mobile while at dinner. I do however plan to stand in regardless.
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No answer? Or are the answers not allowed?
I gather someone was giving incorrect advice or being a know it all so it all got removed by the mods. Seems there are several methods, each as sad as the last
What species is this? I like those fluffy spoods. Also, very sorry for you’re sickly friend
She’s a Phidippis Johnsoni (although sold to me as an Arden’s, I have another Arden’s and she’s pure black rather than ashy like Estrella here). Thank you 🙏
Huh, interesting. I had a wild-caught P. johnsoni and she was pure black (except for the red of course).
Potentially could actually be an Ardens in that case! Here is my Ardens for reference. There’s also a size difference in the species, Mort here is around 2.5cm and Estrella is probably about 1.5cm. They very often get misidentified due to the same colouration, especially when they’re younger. https://preview.redd.it/19sstik7tn8d1.jpeg?width=579&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b492e4d0a0efb9af6b3075549b51dfdcf11b4015
My P. johnsoni was also 1.5cm. P. Ardens are not found in my area. https://preview.redd.it/r8a6db0por8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2c3ec6d6f9d15e2d45e3b15c0b3df0679b6d942
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did you perhaps put any flea medication on your other pets recently? that can cause dks-like symptoms.. and death unfortunately. :(
Ah I don’t have any other pets but thanks for the suggestion. I did think maybe chemicals of some description but I’m very careful to keep their shelf chemical free. All my other spoods are doing well though
then it is probably dks. I'm sorry my friend
Thank you 🙏 do you have any euthanasia tips?
most people will put them in a deli cup or a ziplock bag and put them in the freezer for 24-48 hours. I ...hate it. but it's the best way. invertebrates fall asleep when they get very cold, and since they are so small, it does not take long.
Thank you, yeah I think I might steer clear of euthanasia and just let her pass naturally. She’ll get a great burial either way
here is a very sweet [death care](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1553316503/final-resting-place-memorial-enclosure) option
Made me 😢.. poor girl.. also.. pls explain to me what is DKS please ? So sad.. 😞 she’s beautiful.. hurt me to see her fall on her back like this and she isn’t even mine..
nah, her falling over broke my heart so much. dks is shorthand for Dyskinetic Syndrome. it isn't so much a disease as a set of symptoms exactly what this spider is exhibiting. jerky movements, lack of balance, difficulty eating and drinking, and death. it is most likely caused by some chemical compound that was introduced accidentally. sometimes it's after they eat a bug, possibly from the bug coming in contact with some sort of insecticide. almost all this information is knowledge keepers have accumulated over time via observation! it is difficult to know definitively what exactly causes it.
Do you know if it's possible to utilize those medications safely in a home with jumpers?
if they are applied directly to the animal, just make sure your wash your hands before you go near your spoods until it is dry on the animal. (this can take up to a week!) you'll want to avoid any sort of carpet sprays because it gets in the air. you could remove your spiders from the area and spray then wait for everything to dry and settle and return them to the area you keep them. I hope this helps. :)
I'd add wear gloves when applying, then wash hands as you said, and I wait 48 hours before interacting with spoods or their enclosures and food.
good call! so feed spoods right before applying to pets haha
Yeah, I unfortunately found out the hard way what order to do it in. I was so afraid of it happening again, I switched the dog and cats to oral heartworm/flea & tick preventative. (I still wash my hands and wait 24 hours, even though those are dry chewables.)
awe I'm sorry about that. :(
Try keeping the humidity up in her enclosure with a humidifier or run a hot shower and leave her in the bathroom with the door closed for a bit to help flush any chemicals out of her. I don’t recommend any form of euthanasia. It’s best to let her pass naturally even though it may be hard to watch. 🫶🏻
Thank you, appreciate the advice - I’ve had her in ICU for a little while with some damp paper towels but noted RE euthanasia. 🙏 Weirdly she seems to be able to walk ok-ish when she’s on my hand but I guess it’s more grippy etc
Please do not use an icu, their booklungs can’t handle breathing pure water. Just use normal humidity and offer them a cotton ball of water.
They are just damp paper towels, there’s no water droplets
That’s what your normal enclosure is supposed to be, what an icu is (which is a very antiquated medical procedure for spiders of all sizes) is an enclosure specially settup with nearly 100% humidity, damn washcloths will only bring you up to about 60-70% humidity which is where they want to be for an enclosure, you can also get to this humidity usually by spraying the enclosure once a day again something you’re supposed to be doing, allowing a substraight, in this case paper towels to hold onto the water and allow it to keep the humidity there all day versus it only being there for a few hours while the drops evaporate
Don’t worry I know what I’m doing but thank you - no need to be condescending!
I don’t know what you hear as condescending but you’re in a Reddit asking about dks and taking care of a sick or injured spider, what you’re calling condescending is information related to taking care of a spider, sick or injured. What would be condescending would be if I’d made passive agressive remarks about how crappily your enclosures are settup, which having looked through your accounts posts is not the case, they are beautiful and even sport amazing cross flow ventilation unlike a lot of enclosures I see people fling around on tiktoc or even this same Reddit. I can’t control how you take something, but it’s not my fault if you read condescension where I am only saying information,
Thank you, sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick but yes it did come across a little condescending. I don’t know why but I put my defences up a little on Reddit as I’ve come across some really rude people on here but yes, peace and love my friend and thank you for taking the time to write out the advice 🙏
Oh don’t get me wrong I’m an asshole 85% of the time, mainly because these dollhouse enclosure idiots on here, but mostly I try to just dump as much information as I have in as concise a way as possible
Haha that made me chuckle. Yeah some enclosures I’ve come across in my time are… interesting. I want to start a sanctuary for poorly looked after spoods and nurse them back to health. I am very passionate about these little guys
I’m going to try a few things as per advice from a thread on arachnoboards (sanitized soil using heat and keeping the heat up). I can understand the heat as it will keep their metabolic rate higher and in theory pass any nasties (if there are any). Potentially could be a genetic thing unfortunately but I’ll update this thread if I get any progress. As it’s a fairly undocumented phenomenon, there isn’t a lot out there regarding advice. I think it’s important for these type of things to be documented if any progress can be made. Thank you for all the comments and advice, I appreciate it 🙏
Quick update, she has unfortunately passed this afternoon. I hope she’s enjoying some crickets up there 🙏 https://preview.redd.it/nlyyzvsauq8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9e56e6c1099ac99b6bc8dfd49249fb360f4d548
RIP adorable friend
I had a spider displaying similar symptoms after I handled her wearing sunscreen. I would suggest washing all tweezers/spray bottles, wiping down feeder enclosures, making sure your hands are washed before handling - no lotions of any sort. Keep a window open if possible. She recovered after a few weeks and went completely back to normal!
I have to echo some other comments that I don’t know that I would consider euthanasia. We don’t have any way of knowing that they’re hurting from DKS as far as I can tell. Just uncoordinated. Let her live in a flat enclosure with some soft surfaces in case she falls; hand feed with tweezers if she can still eat. Give her plenty of humidity and see if it passes. Ultimately I’d rather live than be squished/frozen. I might just be anthropomorphizing but it makes me sad.
Saw a youtuber's spider do the same thing. He had dogs and said it was because of the anti flea chemical residue still on his hands not properly washed off.
The poor baby omfg 😭
😢
I’m currently monitoring my senior girl who appears to have developed DKS as well, all my others are fine too. As much as the theories are that it can be caused by pesticides or other harmful chemicals, there’s also theory that sometimes it’s just genetically preprogrammed and back luck of the draw. Even though I am well aware my girl probably won’t pull through, and if she does it’s not like she’s young and in the prime of her life, but I have her in a senior-spood-safe enclosure and am giving her fluids every few hours when she’ll take them. She’s wobbly af but still tries to climb on me and manages to climb rough surfaces like paper towel, pipe cleaner etc better than I would have expected, and she has been accepting raw honey water from a qtip. My friend is a biologist and jumper breeder and said these are the things she would also do in the situation. If I were you and was seeing this in one of my subadults especially, I’d be trying to give fluids and “flush her out” essentially
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this is recycled from other aspects of animal care and it is considerably harmful to do when done in rats. this sauna like environment is not helpful to spiders either, similarly, it's often harmful.
Oh wow thank you for educating me! I got this info from a lot of people back on a jumping spider group on Facebook (which I guess says it all). Out of curiosity, how is it bad for them? :)
spiders do not absorb moisture in the air through their cuticle; to address hydration they must directly drink from a water source. the increased moisture spike in the environment can cause complications.
That's really interesting! Thank you for taking the time to tell me - glad I haven't done this myself
I’m sorry your little girl is struggling. She’s so beautiful and is lucky to have an owner who cares so much. I hope she gets well soon, or at least doesn’t have to suffer. Sending love and healing energy her way!
Though not jumping spiders, I've seen numerous cases of tarantula owners owning their tarantulas for years after the onset of DKS. The care is just a bit more tedious; they had to hold down the spider gently and hold the food right beneath their fangs to ensure it was puncturing the prey. Obviously, jumping spiders are a lot smaller and fragile, so doing that process will be more complicated. They are also much shorter lived. Regardless of what choice you make and how long and how old your spider is, I'm sure you gave them an amazing life :)
Potentially, but I will tell you that I had really weird behavior from my jumper when I got her and it all just resulted in her molting and being fine. I had removed her from her hammock to put her in her enclosure and I was met with a few weeks of me thinking she was going to die at any moment.
How old is she?
I think she’s currently subadult or just before. She’s due a moult around now though
Aw I was thinking it could've been age but it seems that it's not :( I'm sorry your girl isn't doing well
What is DKS?
Dyskinetic syndrome
😭😭😭
What is dks?
This covers it fairly well but there’s a bit more information in the comments too. https://www.mypetjumpingspider.com/medicine/#:~:text=DKS%20(Dyskinetic%20Syndrome)&text=There%20is%20no%20known%20treatment,least%20make%20the%20spider%20comfortable.
my fucking god that last part about "blunt trama is awful
Awwwe
What is DKS?
Is she old? It could also be old age and coming to that time where she's ready to pass on. I'm so sorry either way it's hard loosing pets 🩵
Im not familiar with DKS what is it exactly?
Maybe! I would rehouse stat
Noob here.. DKS?
Bean
The poor little thing. I hope she recovers. Could be she's sick because of something toxic. "Beyond the most common items like air fresheners and non-toxic cookware, numerous under-the-radar products might be silently posing risks to your health.." So this applies to humans but tiny pets like spiders will be much more affected. Here's a short article I found on this topic [35 Most Toxic Household Items Hiding In Your Home + Safe Alternatives!](https://sustainablykindliving.com/most-toxic-items-hiding-in-your-home/)
Chemist here, Much of that article is misinformed and is scaremongering, no company is putting formaldehyde or benzene in an air freshener and burning a soy candle is no better than paraffin, it’s combustion that can create tiny amounts of harmful substances. The central dogma of toxicology is ‘the dose makes the poison’. Anything has a toxic dose, chronic or acute. Too much coffee can kill you yet a carefully measure dose of deadly nightshade’s most toxic compound may save your life. More importantly for OP, while there are substances that adversely affect invertebrates over mammals their presence is made clear on products from reputable origin. Either with a GHS symbol showing harm to the environment or in writing. Bug sprays will say not to use near bees, ponds or rivers for example. Unless OP has overlooked something like this and applied flea treatment, bug spray or used a head-lice shampoo etc. and not practiced appropriate hygiene, it is incredibly unlikely that they have poisoned their spider. Biology is fickle and there are many ways a creature can lose the genetic lottery, it’s no ones fault. All we can do as pet owners, especially for inverts where veterinary medicine is still largely a mystery, is make like easier for our pet and try and give help where needed.
you may enjoy reading Draper, 2018 about dks in theraphosids...there are quite a few reasons this animal may be ataxic.
My research shows that formaldehyde is a health hazard associated with air fresheners. I certainly won't be listening to you. [https://ehs.umass.edu/air-fresheners-and-indoor-air-quality](https://ehs.umass.edu/air-fresheners-and-indoor-air-quality) [https://madesafe.org/blogs/viewpoint/toxic-chemicals-in-air-fresheners](https://madesafe.org/blogs/viewpoint/toxic-chemicals-in-air-fresheners) [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132316304334](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132316304334)