The husbandry, in part, is about getting the substrate right. We use a variety of different substrates. I mostly use dried blocks of Coconut Coir I buy from Poundland & then soak. But I also have some sand, vermiculate & things like moss that I can add, to increase humidity.
But Tarantulas, or T’s as we call them. Come in 3 varieties. Arboreal, who live in trees. These we give cork bark tubes too & higher enclosures. Terrestrial who live on the surface & may happily shelter in a shallow burrow under a piece of bark & Fossorial, those that burrow & the substrate needs to be correct for the individual Tarantula. Loose, dry substrate is no good to a burrowing tarantula. Or pet hole as we call them. Honestly. With many burrowers, you do not see them for months at a time.
I know people in the tarantula hobby who have special, insulated & specially heated rooms, for their T’s.
Once a male matures all he wants to do is mate. He will often stop eating & drinking & will endlessly roam his enclosure, even tap on the sides. It is all he lives for.
And being eaten is not always after the mating. Sometimes it does not get that far. If she wants a meal, more than spiderlings, then he is food.
Last year I passed 3 mature males onto a local retailer & breeder. Had any of them been successful, I would have got spidrlings in return. Some egg sacks can contain a 1000 or more spiderlings, other species may produce just a few hundred at most.
The hooks on a mature male are part way up the leg. I have ringed them on the following photo. Which was my mature male pink bloom.
Thank you. That’s very interesting. Setting up their preferences must be crucial to their survival. Is coconut coir the same as coconut husk? I buy coconut husk liners to make all my hanging flower baskets since they absorb water so well and seem more gentle on the flower root systems.
Creating their individual environments must be quite fun. Do you have to buy products pre sterilized or can you find objects and sterilize them yourself? Or is this too risky ?
I’m so fascinated by this that I actually looked it up. Some male species of spiders are more evolved than others and do know they are going to be eaten but have a protective tool where they wrap the female in a blanket type of thing so she can’t devour them. It’s quite fascinating.
Not fascinating enough for me to want to purchase one. I’ll just admire yours.
My house has several Huntsman spiders that grow quite large and terrify my pommie visitors. I like them because they eat cockroaches and other bugs but don’t make webs.
In my garden there are Redbacks which you have to be careful of because their venom can be quite dangerous though no one dies of spider bites any more. A family of Redbacks has lived in my garage door since its construction.
Yes much the same thing. Gardeners also use Coconut Coir.
Everything we use needs to be chemical free. For example, using organic soil, or making sure that any plants added to an enclosure are chemical free. We also need to avoid anything with Pine in it. As pine is a natural insecticide.
There are several different types of Arachnid. Tarantulas being just one. I have a funnel web, not the Australian, but Columbian. Mine is not on the Dangerous Wild Animals Act list. But it is not a true spider, nor a tarantula, but a primitive spider. Which means it is derived from the oldest species known to exist. With just family of the species remaining in existence. Thier lungs are very different to modern (true) spiders & their spinnerets are below them, not at the front.
Wait! What?
Barking as in canine?
Can you actually hear them bark?
And this doesn’t worry you ?
Then again, you previous mentioned that they often bury themselves underground for days.
Do any of them ever die unexpectedly and you don’t find them ‘till much later? And how attached do you get? I know I always cry lots when we lose a dog but I would think these are a bit different.
No. But I am extra cautious with the Selenocosmia crassipes, as I have two dogs & the venom on these has been known to kill an Australian Shepherd in as little as 20 minutes. And one of my dogs is a Dachshund, so a lot smaller & more vulnerable. The venom is not nice on humans, but no medical treatment is needed.
[quote=“Bratti, post:50, topic:81840”] Wait! What?
Barking as in canine?
Can you actually hear them bark? [/quote]
They make a hissing sound & if feeling very threatened, this can be heard well over 10 feet away.
We don’t worry about never seeing a T. In general you know if it’s eating or not. And we try to keep them in as natural environment as possible. And yes I have had T’s die, if food is not eaten for months, you do tend to go looking for them. But T’s can go for months & not eat, especially if they are pre molt.
T’s like snakes etc. Molt to grow. The following is a few molts from a couple of weeks last summer. Warm weather produces more molts.
It is really not nice when one dies. Even if it is a mature male & natural & expected. You always wonder if you could have done something different for them. And some you become really attached to. Three of mine have names.
Felicity, or Flick for short. She is a goliath Birdeater & around 9 inches. She is a real kitten, but hisses & loves to flick hair. Hence her name.
Hohokam. Who is an Arizona Blonde & named after the ancient people who irrigated the Sonoran Desert. I like to educate myself about my T’s natural environment & she is lovely. She has real attitude & moves lots of substrate.
And lucky. An Indian T. In the wild these T’s existed in3 tea plantations only & then India allowed one of them to be developed into a holiday resort. So they just became even more rare. She is what we call an old world & old worlds are not seen as beginners T’s. They are fast, more defensive & their venom, in general, is worse. Lucky needs to be several small crickets, as big ones stress her & she hides. So much for the reputation of old worlds.
That’s incredible. I had no idea whatsoever that a spider could even make noise.
Ok. I get just like any pet, you get to know their habits and personalities. This is much like snakes; that moulting thing. Gotcha! We’ll explained.
WOW! Do you ever at first confuse the sheds for the actually spider? Those sheds are a bit creepy but I’m not used to seeing such things whereas you are. Even that big one is a shed?
Boy, you could really pull off some cool pranks!
The molts in general are dry & curled up when found. by flattening them out we get to measure leg length which like a TV is done diagonally. So front left to rear right. And the molt is the best way of sexing a tarantula. You look for a slit on the underside between it’s book lungs. Spiders do not have conventional lungs, instead they have something, which inside looks somewhat similar to a book.
The children of some friends have loved being given a tarantula molt.
That’s amazing. You know, I’ve never in my life even considered the thought of needing to identify the sex of a tarantula but this way is truly brilliant. That molt really does look cool and I bet kids are tickled pink getting one. What a cool thing to show your friends.
Well I’ve never learned so much about spiders as I have in this thread. Thank you for showing such unique creatures and educated us some.
Very good!
no redbacks there’s something else - no their entire backs are not red - in fact it is a red dot varying in size and you can spend days looking for it! - only really dangerous for old persons and babies and bruces dog!
