#tarantula husbandry

[lycantherous]

Hello! You may or may not remember me - I asked your advice about getting a tarantula a few months ago. Anyway, I managed to get one last week!

They're a brachypelma klaasi, about ½inch! Their name is Penny Dreadful! Thanks for your advice. I have another question, if that's okay - how do I go about feeding them for the first time? I put a freshly dead cricket in their habitat, but they haven't come out of their hide. I'm not sure what to do. Obviously, I can't leave the cricket in there to rot, but how do I get Penny to eat??

Xoxo

The easiest is to leave in overnight and in the morning assumed they came out and filled up.

And I've only had 3 little spoods but all only took mayyybe one meal and then fasted and molted pretty soon.

You might be able to make sure they're eating with a really small segment of a prey, but their meals are so small it's most likely they are eating as much as they can and it doesnt show.

After the spider molts I wait until the fangs are black (fresh soft fangs are clear)

[z-o-r-a-k]

Literally thinking about my pet tarantula every second of the day now that it's started sitting at its burrow entrance. Please look at my fluffy baby please

[pennaraptor]

shes having a sippy

[gardeneticist]

I just got my first ever pet tarantula! It’s a baby pygmy rainforest tarantula (Coremiocnemis “tropix”) and it’s currently only about 1cm long.

[grushenko]

https://www.reddit.com/r/spiderbro/comments/10v152f/i_love_spiders_and_am_all_for_keeping_them_as/j7frybf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3

[auckie]

Dude I am so sick of people’s attitudes towards wild animals. They are not domesticated they are not pets they will not be happy as pets and even if they are you are either going to be unhappy or have to deal with their impulse to breed and do what they would be doing in the wild, which is shit and tear your house up and probably bite you. If it works out. Well hey! Cool.

I’ve befriended this adorable cotton tail and been able to keep it alive, a miracle because they’re difficult, and it adores me and I love it but once I’m able I’m going to put this fucker outside around other cottontails and hope a hawk doesn’t swoop it.

And seeing as it’s so trusting, that very well may happen. Not a lot of juvenile wild rabbits make it to adulthood. The hawk gets to live and that’s fine by me. They’re not endangered and while I’m glad I could keep it alive I have severely handicapped its ability to fear, which is vital. As it gets older it may regain its original, instinctual sense of terror and anxiety, and I hope it does for its own sake. It’s the very same people who insist I put a bow on it and breast feed it and all that stupid shit who would probably fail to research where to get cecotropes and be confused when an unspayed adult female rabbit starts becoming aggressive towards them and dies early from being confined indoors, if it even makes it that far.

I mean. Even if I’ve been doing a good job it could literally drop dead any moment. Rehabbed rabbits do that constantly without warning. And it’ll be sad but that’s just the risk. I’m not a professional but I’ve had experience with squirrels and frankly while I know it’s illegal in some states, i also know that’s to prevent a lot of random people from nabbing cute baby animals and not doing any research and attempting to keep them as pets. But I also think, that like agriculture, carpentry, tailoring— they’re skills you can and should learn. It’s like in human DNA. Are you gonna be a licensed professional? No, I mean probably not. Animal husbandry is the same. Buuut, it’s alive. So you gotta respect that.

There’s an in between of the ardent scare tactics professionals use (rightfully so) to deter laymen from say, putting a brachypelma tarantula on their face. It will probably be fine to do that. I’m not recommending it bc it totally could bite you, or kick hairs into your eyes and nose. But like, it’s probably gonna be fine. But don’t it. Don’t take a baby Robin from its nest but like if you have to for whatever reason, be good to it, do your research and send it to a rehab center probably but you totally can learn to care for it. And if you do, you should be ready and willing to attempt to reintroduce it to its natural habitat. And it might die. It could at a rehab center too. It’s not a baby eagle*, but it’s a living creature that serves a niche in the food web and it’s important to try and put it back into that place even if it means it gets predated.

*sucks to assign animals like. Priority levels but you can and should step on Japanese garden beetles should you see them on your knock out rose bush. You find a dying bee yeah give it honey water or whatever. Don’t fuck with the mantids. You get the gist.

I don’t regret taking the little feller in at all but I also will not regret trying to acclimate him back into his natural habitat: my yard lol.

[crevicedwelling]

Thought just occurred to me but do vets treat arthropods? I imagine it’s not easy or sometimes even feasible?

most do not. I’ve read a paper on centipede husbandry from a veterinary care angle but don’t know who it’s actually for. maybe there’s a exotics vet or two in Europe that’s worked with inverts before (given how common keeping bugs is there) but I really don’t know.

many illnesses and injuries in arthropods are fatal or treatable by the owner. mycosis (fungal infection) in centipedes can be prevented with proper humidity parameters and getting the animal to molt; a tear in a tarantula’s abdomen can be repaired with superglue (with a nonzero success rate!). other things like bad molting failures or heavy parasite load can be fatal, though.

[fellowshipofthenoodles]

hey so i need some advice about snakes. i dont have like a massive fear of them but it’s still big and makes me skin crawl a little bit. do you have any suggestions on how to get past this and improve? (same with spiders)

Hello!

So, even as a snake lover, I can understand that a fear of snakes is a normal, natural response. Same with spiders and other things that are common phobias! So for my first step, I want to stress this to you: don’t beat yourself up over it!

Next two steps are a do together thing; learn some stuff and exposure.

- If you can, find somewhere that you can be around snakes in a controlled environment. This can be places like museums, all the way to breeders, reputable pet stores, reptile enthusiasts, friends who would be patient and let you be in the room with and maybe eventually hold them when you feel comfy etc. There’s a lot of YouTube and TikTok accounts that are dedicated to things like advanced husbandry, where you can see the care that goes into caring for animals without the focus being directly on the animals themselves.

- Follow blogs on tumblr (👀👋🏻) where you can see people talking about their pets and the love they give to them. Even seeing the videos and pictures will gradually help to desensitise you. There’s tons of good reptiblrs (too many for me to remember right now sorry!) that can give you some good insight into the day to day lives of our little weird creatures.

- Once you’re comfortable enough, learn about them. Did you know that ball pythons are called that in the US because they curl into a ball when they’re spooked? When tarantulas are scared, they sometimes pull their legs over their eyes to hide them too.

Also remember: you’re way bigger and way scarier than they are!

Small snakes like hognoses will thrash around and inflate themselves and HISS and bonk themselves at you and sometimes flip themselves upside down to pretend to play dead, and that’s because you’re big and spooky.

Tarantulas will do something called “kicking hairs” where they stick their little booties up in the air and smack them with their back feet to kick specialised hair to make you leave them alone by making you itchy. That’s because you’re HUUUUGE and they’re just little guys.

While ball pythons aren’t a beginner species to keep necessarily due to their husbandry, they are a pretty good species to be introduced to as a first snake; they’re slow moving, hefty little curious creatures with the silliest puppy dog faces and well socialised balls are extremely handleable.

If for whatever reason you do get bitten by a small snake that’s a constrictor (like a ball python, or corn snake) then it’s very easy to get them off by smearing hand sanitizer on their mouths. It doesn’t hurt the snake (just tastes gross), and the bite doesn’t hurt you either too much - it feels a lot like you’ve been attacked by angry Velcro.

I hope you get past your fears, anon - please be patient with yourself! ❤️

Tonka the ball python is wishing you luck from his hide!

[slasherbish]

Tarantulas (Asa Emory x Reader)

Reader is a victim in one of the red chests in his surgery room. These things are old as hell and not very well put together anymore so the lock on the chest gives out when you push on it. 

You were the latest to be chosen by the collector. You woke up in a red chest.

The chests are all old. They all look like they are barely holding together. You push against the lid and the clasp keeping it closed gives out

Asa sees this on the security cameras and quickly goes to the surgery room.

He is prepared to deal with his victim to be trying to escape, but that doesn’t happen. 

After climbing out of the chest you see the shelves with jars of live tarantula’s. 

You LOVE these fuzzy arachnids. 

So naturally you completely disregard the fact that you’re being held captive by a serial killer and go over to hold one of the tarantulas.

Asa walks in to see his victim baby talking to a tarantula that they’re holding. 

You don’t hear him come in until he steps on to the shiny floors. 

The Collector once again prepared himself for them to try to run or have eyes full of fear and once again this didn’t happen

Oh no you weren’t scared, you were livid. “How dare you keep these beautiful babies in tiny glass jars!?!?” you nearly yell. “Entomologist my ass”

This takes Asa aback. 

He smiles under his mask. 

You start to ramble about what the correct enclosure and husbandry would be. 

Oh it made his heart flutter. Someone who likes arachnids and hopefully insects as well. 

“Why the fuck are you staring” you say.

“I think I’ll keep you” He replied 

“Only if you get better enclosures or I’ll have to kill you and give these darlings a proper home” You snapped back. 

[serowebs]

hey so I am incredibly new to isopod keeping and I got my first few isopods less than a week ago

they are rubber ducky isopods wich I know are not the best starter option however I still wanted to give it a shot since their general set ups and husbandry to some extend don't vary that severely to a tarantulas for example

now uh- cam anyone maybe explain what's going on with this lad? idk if those are babies because aside from springtails [wich I wanna very strongly bet are not those little entities-] there shouldn't be any other life forms at all in the little enclosure they have so uh- help pls? :,)

[lycantherous]

Hi hello! I hope you're doing well :) I stumbled across your post about tarantula husbandry, and I was wondering, as someone interested in getting a tarantula, would you be willing to share some tips for a beginner? I've done some research and know some of the basics, and I've found a local breeder that breeds Chilean rose tarantulas

Yes!! First - I reccomend Tom's big spiders. In prep for, and just after getting my rosy, I listened to his podcast whenever i was driving. He also does youtube vids.

I've never worked with slings and just only recently got my first juvie.

My spider molted just after I got her. I was prepared but it was still scary and I def googled "do spiders die upsidown" just to reeeaally make sure.

I just rehoused her into a smaller enclosure where the top isnt a screen but one sheet of stamped metal - I'm preeety sure without the overlapping wires she wont get her toes stuck. I first housed her in a 20 long with a regular screen lid so just fitted a piece of cardboard with vent holes on the inside of the lid. I knew itd be temp so I didnt mind ugly.

You wont need to add extra humidity or heat. Room temp is great, as long as it doesnt drop below 60°f for too long. Extra heat will dry out ur spider dangerously fast and misting/soaking the substrate promotes bacterial and mold growth.

Good tarantula enclosures will have side ventilation, you want the air to move through the tank rather than evaporate out the top. This is more important with species that you do want to keep more humid without risking nastiness.

Put in a water bowl! Source of humidity that's easy to clean and your spider can go over and drink from it. They wont drown, I had a huuge dog sized bowl (used to be snake bowl) in her last encloser and I'd watch her climb up and lean over and start drinking. She put some of her legs "in" the water for support. Their little feets are water repellent so it was really her floating on the surface.

So no drowning spiders but if ur lucky you might see a floating spider!

My rosy likes to climb so her enclosure is filled about 2/3rds substrate. Shes around 6" so I left about 5" of wall to climb. They dont take falls well. Honestly shed be safe with 7" but in her last enclosure she dug out a corner so I wanted to give her more medium to play in and dig.

In the snake tank I had her on cocofiber which was great but didnt hold its shape. I bought an expensive bag of arid pet dirt at my local reptiles/exotics shop for her to burrow because I dont personally trust plant dirt to not have possible fertilizer or pesticide contamination.

Both fertilizer and any sort of pesticide will kill your pet. This includes any topical flea medication that people use on their dogs. Bleach will kill your pet, these guys are sensitive to chemicals. I use watered down vinegar and make sure to rinse really well if I need to clean something. Otherwise a damp cloth is best for spot cleaning.

An adult sized t can live very happily on a handful of crickets a month and smaller spiders on smaller meals. I want to overfeed mine because the manager of the reptile store is so wonderful and loud and gay and has a jurassic park car and I wanna loiter 😔

Try and throw in some cork bark and decorative plants and moss in there. You want to make the floor not flat, layered objects help make a lot of pockets and more vertical space and your t will feel safer and will have options to choose from when making their little home base

A lot of people never hold their Ts like how fish ppl mostly dont hold or pet their fish. This is because when they fall they pop and if they bite (whether for defense or the spider is trying to hang on to ur slippery monkey arm) your first reaction is to fling the poor critter.

Contact with my animals is super important for me personally so I'll have them walk across my hands in their enclosure. My coworker would handle hers on the floor in a room that it wasnt easy for her t's to find a spot to hide if they bolted.

I love talking about animal husbandry so much I hope these are at least a good list of stuff to learn more about

[ughfuckingbiotypical]

Paraguana peninsula Biotope

Target Species: Green Bottle Blue Tarantula (Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens)

Location: Paraguana peninsula, Northern Venezuela, South America

Habitat Type: Desert

I know this blog's been quiet, since I started it, but I'm finally back with my first biotope summary and its even one I've recently built! It was finally time for me to upgrade my Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens Vlad into her adult enclosure.

This is not a care guide, if you are looking for information on care for this species there are sources at the bottom of this post written by tarantula keepers much more experienced than me. I used many of them when I was originally deciding if this was a species I would like to keep.

The target species of this enclosure is a docile species of new world tarantula. They boast dark blue and rusty orange coloration, and once settled into an enclosure, are typically outgoing enough for you to see and enjoy them. They are a burrowing species that will build a thick web around the entrance, so providing plenty of substrate and structure to anchor to is key. They also don't require conditions that are terribly difficult to maintain. Unfortunately they are classified as critically endangered in the wild, potentially making the captive bred population of this species an important resource.

Original Photos: young specimen with juvenile coloration, 21 Mar. 2023 (Left). Vlad almost fully transitioned to the adult coloration, 14 Feb. 2024 (Right).

The setup I built is very simple. The only animals are the target species and cleanup crew (isopods, not habitat accurate). All foliage is artificial, as I didn't want to potentially stress her with a grow light to maintain plants that she will likely web over anyway (the LED above her cage will only be turned on for viewing). So this outline will have much less specific information on the flora and fauna that occur in this habitat outside of the target species than future outlines will.

I had some trouble finding photos I was sure were habitat from Paraguana that weren't wide shots, let alone photos of C. cyaneopubescens in its natural environment, but based on photos like this one:

Cerro Santa Ana, Paraguaná Peninsula, Venezuela - by Jujovar2010.

And a couple of short descriptions, this habitat seems to be characterized by dense shrubs and barrel cacti. The deserts of this region are also characterized by sand dunes, but C. cyaneopubescens reportedly (and in my experience) likes to anchor their webs around plants. So It is unlikely one would willingly spend much of its time out on open sand dunes.

Desert on the Way to Paraguaná- by R, Frank Morales, 12 Oct. 2009. Flickr

With that information, my observations on Vlad's habits, and the materials available, this is the setup I've put together.

Original Photo, 9 Sept. 2024.

I kept things simple, as this is one of my smaller terrariums inhabited by an animal, and much of it will eventually be covered by webbing as well. I included branches of various sizes to simulate the underbrush and a hollow piece of cholla wood mounted in a vertical position. The cholla wood is not a biotypically accurate variety of cactus, but it provides a convenient naturalistic hide for the tarantula. I also chose faux grass that would mimic the look of dormant desert grass. I may make some adjustments when I get the chance, specifically replacing the current water bowl with one that fits into the scape better.

Bonus cryptid spotting:

Original Photo, 12 Sept. 2024.

Image Descriptions in Alt

Sources under cut

David, Zach. “Chromatopelma Cyaneopubescens 101: Care, Enclosure, Temperament & More.” Beyond The Treat, 22 Aug. 2019, https://beyondthetreat.com/chromatopelma-cyaneopubescens/.

“Green Bottle Blue Tarantula Care.” The Tarantula Collective, https://www.thetarantulacollective.com/caresheets/chromatopelma-cyaneopubescens. Accessed 23 July 2024.

Greenbottle Blue Care Sheet | Tarantula Husbandry | TARANTULAS.Com. http://tarantulas.com/caresheets/C_cyaneopubescens.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

“Greenbottle Blue Tarantula.” Wikipedia, 25 Feb. 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greenbottle_blue_tarantula&oldid=1210157315.

Greenbottle Blue Tarantula: GBB Care, Facts & Species - More Reptiles. https://www.morereptiles.com/greenbottle-blue-tarantula/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

Klich, Szymon. “Chromatopelma Cyaneopubescens: Green Bottle Blue Tarantula.” Spiders World, 18 Dec. 2023, https://spiderswrld.com/chromatopelma-cyaneopubescens-description/.

Paraguaná & Médanos de Coro: Where Desert Meets the Caribbean | LAC Geo. https://lacgeo.com/paraguana-peninsula-medanos-coro. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

Paraguaná Peninsula | Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Venezuela, Araya Peninsula | Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Paraguana-Peninsula. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

R, Frank Morales. Desert on the Way to Paraguaná. photo, 12 Oct. 2009. Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/frankmorales/4006822182/.

Will. Green Bottle Blue Tarantula Care Guide and FAQs. 22 June 2022, https://thespiderblog.com/green-bottle-blue-tarantula-care-guide-and-faqs/.

big shout out to the Zotero extension for making compiling the sources for this thing I do in my free time MUCH easier

[hapalopus]

What are your controversial opinions on animal husbandry?

Whether an animal has been domesticated is irrelevant when you're asking if it makes a good companion animal. A cattle bull is an awful pet. A boar pig is an awful pet. A Tibetan mastiff is an awful pet. A game rooster is (often, not always) an awful pet. Meanwhile stick insects, corn snakes, hedgehogs, and California quail are all wild animals that make fantastic pets.

No animal should be outright illegal to keep, but you also shouldn't be able to walk into a pet store and just buy any animal. There should be a licensing system for all animal husbandry.

Private ownership of dangerous exotics can be a good thing within this licensing system. It's what we have here in Denmark (to a degree; a lot of animals still don't require a license, unfortunately), which has led to the formation of Krokodille Zoo, a private zoo that contributes significantly to international crocodilian conservation.

If someone wants an elephant, have proven that they have the funds, facilities, and expertise to take care of an elephant, and there is a surplus elephant in the zoo system, they should be able to get a license to take in that elephant, regardless of if they're a private person or a public institution. I understand where (E)AZA's decision with regards to surplus animals comes from, but that doesn't mean I don't think it sucks ass that they just euthanize all surplus animals. Those animals could still be ambassadors without being part of an EEP or SSP or [insert other captive breeding program].

Also private people should be able to contribute to captive breeding programs when possible. Lord knows, the tarantula community cares more about the fate of P. metallica than EAZA ever will...

[cnestus]

howdy! i was wondering, if you know, if creatures that molt (like tarantulas) have decreased eyesight before molting like snakes do?

thank you!!

i'll be honest i was pretty checked out when i took the one insect physiology class i had to in grad school, so i don't recall if that ever came up. i suspect though that yeah there probably would be some vision impairment right before ecdysis due to the old eye cuticle and new cuticle interfering with each other. someone with more arthropod husbandry experience like @crevicedwelling might have a better idea.

i poked at the literature a bit just to see if an easy answer popped up and it didn't but i did learn that post-ecdysis spider eyes have a little protective pigment ring in them to shield the retina while the new cuticle finishes setting, and then gradually disappears over the next week or so. so that's cool

[t4lon]

i am hoping to keep tarantulas someday... i have my suspicions that spider husbandry is on average just Not adequate and id like to just legitimately experiment to see if i can determine what exactly a healthy spider looks like. same with jumping spiders... i know theyre small but I've seen the scope of the territories the ones in my yard roam and with their curiosity and intelligence they almost certainly need regular enrichment, right?!?! The enclosures i see some spiders in make me :[