Now she's a super full, very engorged spood, who has taken to sitting in her substrate... and I'm very concerned about abdominal separation. If people aren't familiar with abdominal separation in spiders, it's where an over fed spider has such a heavy abdomen that the weight of it pulls down and physically breaks the internal connections between the abdomen and the cephalothorax. It's something that predominantly occurs in captive jumping spiders, as they wouldn't necessarily get enough food in the wild to cause such problems. Usually it is caused by an over fed spider falling when moving around their terrarium. I have no idea whether it can occur spontaneouly. There isn't a lot of information about it on the internet - its something I predominantly read about in spider owner forums. So I know very little about it, and I have questions!
How long will it take this to go down? If it did separate, would it kill her instantly? If not, how would I know it's happened... ? I'm massively anxious and I have more questions that I can't think of right now. She's never been this big before.
Another potential complication of waxworms is impaction. It's the spider equivalent of constipation. There is such a high fat content in a waxworm that their usually liquid poop can solidify, blocking them up and preventing them from relieving themselves. If this isn't rectified then it can slowly kill them. In a larger spider such as a tarantula, a warm wet cotton bud rubbed on the excretion site (read: spider bum hole!) can potentially relieve this malady, but in a spider as small as Winnie? It's not viable. Impaction would kill her. If she stays down in the substrate then I guess that's a good thing risk-wise, but it's very unusual behaviour for her, so I'm still worried... Waxworms are most definitely off the menu permanently now as she just has no self control over them! I tried to give her a slice and she ate the whole damned cake! Snaccident is not the word - she is now a roly poly spood. I'm not sure she could move if she tried! Please keep your fingers crossed that she comes out of this okay.
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