I guess it's a breeding season for spiders? I find here and there egg sacks with spiders holding and protecting it. I don't mess with them, except for 2 situations:
- if I see a black widow outside the house, I try to kill it (and destroy her eggsack)
- if spiders interfere with our human/pet activities, I have to kill them.
Today we found a little cutie with her sack next to the the indoor trash bucket. I have moral difficulty to kill expectant mother, so my husband does it (and he has no remorse)
Also we have a gap in the bricks where I put up outdoor aviary for my cockatiels, and every single day there are new spiders in that corner (large fuzzy disgusting, probably wolf spiders). I am cleaning the area before letting birds out, and the only way to clean it is killing them.

Is there a way not to kill them?

Are you sure they're wolf spiders (could very well be, they are common enough) I mean, if there's no webbing it could be wolf spiders.

I don't know why you'd need to kill them before you let the birds out if they're wolfs spiders. They can be eaten by pretty much any bird, amphibian, lizard, or mammal bigger than the spider itself.

I think wasps eat them too or put eggs in them so the larves eat it when they come out of the eggs...

I have no sollution for you if you want to relocate them. Sorry

If you can use a piece of paper or a spoon or something to scoop them up you can move them. You might need to scoop them up and dump them into a container that they can't easily get out of, like a tall glass, and cover the top with something so they don't crawl out while you're moving them to their new location.

Not to make you feel uncomfortable, but I generally don't like killing anything myself, but there are 2 useless animals the ecosystem will not miss in my book, and one of them is a black widow spider. If it makes you feel better for doing so, they're poisonous! I wouldn't want to hear about you, your daughter or your birds getting bit and getting sick from one.

Now, there is a different approach besides directly killing them yourself: praying mantis. Praying mantis actually eat black widows, so if you have a nursery anywhere near you, most of them will carry a praying mantis egg you can hatch. I've done it many times and it is actually really fun and interesting to watch.

A large praying mantis can kill and eat adult hummingbirds, so if you have tiny birds (including babies), keep the mantises away from them!

I live in Ireland and my cousins conure was killed by a spider.

Wow! That's true! I had to google it for myself because I just couldn't belive it (sorry Carolyn).

I found so many pictures. Here is one, but if you want to see it, you have to click on the link. It's pretty graphic.

http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah2 ... dl8bbq.jpg

It's so sad that these birds get tricked into drinking food (that red stuff) while there is a mantis waiting to eat them. Poor things.

sorry for abandoning this thread.
no more wolf spiders (or whoever they are) in that corner. Hopefully soon it will be too cold for any spiders.
praying mantis is disgusting and no, I am not going to hatch any of them here

I think praying mantises are cool, but the big ones can be hazardous to small vertebrates.