Exotic Pets 2

[Jeremy D. Hoge]

May I suggest you handle this privately until it is completely resolved. Then you can deliver the facts as you see fit. That would be best.

[J M Clegg]

Personally I would have never bought a male tarantula from anywhere without seeing it first. Many BTS members (myself included) will gladly lend / give their males to other breeders on a 50/50 anyway. The problem you have is that you don't know how long it has been moulted male, so you don't really know how much fuel remains in his little tank. Secondly, in many cases (but not all) it's unusual for a male to eat regularly after a "male" moult so they are reliant on water to survive. No water equals quick dehydration and death.

You will probably find that someone sold the spider to your supply as soon as they realised it was male - just to pull some money back. £30 from a trader is better than nothing when your spider has only about 12 -18 months to live. My local store has a B.Vagans male on sale for £65 that they bought for £30 from a spider keeper!!!

Sadly with your dead spid, you have no knowledge of it's age or it's previous kept conditions. It's the gamble you take when your order without seeing. Hopefully the dealers in question will do the right thing for you though.

[Nicola Dolby]

Thanks for caring, the thing was the one I got was sub-adult; sexed male but hadn't matured. So he should have been eating normally. I think I'll just stick to what I said before. Get a replacement or my money back (the latter shouldn't take them 5 minutes using paypal) and then have no more to do with them.

[colin haris]

T's can live for a week easy in a container with no air holes. They have very little oxygen requirements.

Hi Jeremy

I sure your right about the oxygen requirements being low, but i personally would never take that risk, as im sure not many of us would.
I bought two slings from them and they both had lots of air holes.

Has anyone else noticed the liquid stain next to the poor little guy? could that have been injury caused in shipping?

[Bryan_Dennis]

I sure your right about the oxygen requirements being low, but i personally would never take that risk, as im sure not many of us would

It's true Colin, a spiders book lungs process air very slowly. They can be kept in sealed containers for (container size dependant) weeks at a time.
I think the reason a lot of people put air holes in containers when shipping is simply because ...well, thats the way you do it, right!
We'd need air holes and spiders breath air so spiders need air holes.

Not that i'm trying to justify anything about EP .. had a bad experience myself but spider containers needing airholes for shipping is a myth..

[Kain Prestwood]

Has anyone else noticed the liquid stain next to the poor little guy? could that have been injury caused in shipping?

Feces probably.

Kain