I’ve got a question ratty.
You’re threaphosa blondi…is that the so called “bird eater” tarantula?
Oh and the Mexican red kneed tarantulas. Can they really reach 300 bucks? I’ve been looking for these little buggers forever. But my petstore only cares about 3 species of tarantulas.
One more thing…
I see you feed yours pinkie mice. I feed mine “feeder” mice. The kind that can actually run around. I’ve tried feeding Mort(my spider) pinkie mice, but she’s not really interesting in something the doesnt’ run around. The feeder does have a potential to hurt my spider but whenever I feed her I watch closely with pencil in my hand to intervene if my spider is in trouble. I was just curious why you use pinkie mice.
Yes. It is also referred to as the Goliath. I got her as a spiderling from a specialized breeder.
Yep. A healthy breeding female B. smithii is a major market commodity. Their population in the wild is extremely endangered- they’re currently on the CITES II list, and there’s talk of putting them up to III. They’re the ultimate tarantulas, IMO- fairly large, beautifully colored, and extremely docile.
Most pet stores only carry a few species, the most common being the rosy-toed tarantula, Grammastola rosea. You also see some other Brachypelma species, usually the curly-haired albopilosum. I’ve been seeing a lot of Avicularia avicularia lately, which are not good choices for a beginning keeper- they’re fast, jumpy, and they love to bite. Sometimes you also see zebra or red-phase Phrixotrichus spatulata, which are also bad choices- they seem to carry a lot of external parasites, and again, they’re very jumpy spiders.
I feed pinkies because my T. Blondi is slow and stupid, while feeder mice are fast and smart. There’s just too much risk involved for me to be comfortable with it. I also keep reptiles, so I buy bulk frozen mice, which I really like because they’re cheap, easy, (no breeding my own) and freezing generally kills most internal parasites, which can really mess up a reptile. So I just thaw a pinkie and toss it to Mother. (that’s her name) She loves it. She gets one pinkie per month plus a few crickets, and she’s fat and happy. Takes her a good four hours to eat the entire mouse.
Tamex, you need to be careful with heating pads. They can very quickly get way too hot, and they tend to dry out the air. This is very bad for spiders. But if comes down to heating pad or death by freezing, I’d recommend using a very small reptile undertank heater, and putting it under one side of the cage only. Ideally, this spider needs to get out of the basement and into a warm room. Keeping your spider in the closet is actually a great idea- they prefer the dark, and people who are afraid of/disgusted by spiders don’t have to look at it.
Avowed spider-lover here. When I was a kid, we had a pet tarantula my biologist dad brought home. We all loved her, and would let her crawl around the house, and up and down our arms. We had a whole houseful of strange critters, but La Spida was especially loved.
When we went down to Mexico on one of Dad’s fieldwork courses, we left La Spida with a colleague entymologist. figuring he could best care for her. Upon returning a month later, he had pinned her, saying she had just died. Our house was upset, us kids in tears, and, I don’t think my Dad trusted him in the Biology Department after that. “Ya pinned my kid’s Tarantula, E, that’s a sad thing in my house…”
Tarantulas are incredibly beautiful, but , like a lot of other exotic creatures who don’t really benefit from a human bond, I’m hesitant to endorse their keeping as pets. In the case of the OP, since Lolth is already at the mercy of her keepers, maybe you can give her a better home. The caretaking advice put forth here is great, so you have a good headstart. To my mind, educating a six year old about an appreciation of spiders is also a wonderful thing. They are often the brunt of misunderstanding, and labelled as reprehensible, and generally, “scary”. By teaching a kid that they are just another creature in the vast scope of things does a world of good in teaching general tolerance toward that we see as oddly foreign.
I’d say, give it a try, Tamex. I know that seeing all kinds of critters at an early age gave me an over-arching eglatarian view of the world, one I’m very grateful for.
I was camping in Anza-Borrego State Park, in Southern California. One of my fellow campers looked down, let out a whoop, and jumped out of her chair. There was a tarantula. What happened next will be better with photographic evidence. I believe the filename will describe my reaction: