communial size?

[Jamie Brady]

Hey, ive the opportunity to buy 2 female pokies with 6 inch leg spans that have been living together from the get go.
My question is will my 12x12x18 exo be large enough for the 2 of them?
Ive read in Dan H's pokie guide that communial pokies should be given to much space as this can encourage territorialism so thought they would be ok. If im wrong then I will be buying only 1 pokie lol.

thanx for your feed back

[matthew spooner]

that size should be fine mate, good luck,

[Jamie Brady]

thanx

that size should be fine mate, good luck,

thanx mate, thought as much. Will post picswhen set up

[Ray Gabriel]

Actually at present we dont really have a clue,

No one has published any findings of how adult pokes live together that I am aware of.

I hav ea friend who kept 3 female regalis together in a tank 40cmx 25cm x 12cm (very rough dimensions) he introduced a male but didnt keep on top of feeding the females, and ended up with one very fat female who moulted.

In reality you are venturing into virgin teritory, please keep us informed.

Ray

[Jamie Brady]

thanx

Actually at present we dont really have a clue,

No one has published any findings of how adult pokes live together that I am aware of.

I hav ea friend who kept 3 female regalis together in a tank 40cmx 25cm x 12cm (very rough dimensions) he introduced a male but didnt keep on top of feeding the females, and ended up with one very fat female who moulted.

In reality you are venturing into virgin teritory, please keep us informed.

Ray

Thanx for your reply Ray, I realise theirs always a risk of Cannibalism but I guess thats a risk your taking housing together eh. Im going to get info from the seller on his frequency of feeding etc as he's been successful till now so want to stick to his routine.
Beeding is defo something id like to do in the future but would separate them when that time came.

Ill keep updating

[Peter Lacey]

You haven't mentioned which species, some Poecilotheria are more communal than others. The 3 P. rufilata I had were excellent together and so too were the 5 x P. subfusca. Both of these communities reached maturity for the males without issues (apart from my own concerns). I also have communities of 4 x P. pederseni, 3 x P. miranda, 8 x P. striata plus 3 x P. ornata and 4 x P. ornata. The ornata seem the least communal, best described as co-habitating, I suffered a loss with one group of 4 through missing one feed. I currently have mum and 30 P. striata slings, mum and 30 x P. regalis slings and 22 x P. regalis large slings which should all prove interesting.

From my own experience I find not providing large enclosures helps to make sure the pokies live communally, so I go from tubs to cereal tubs/sweet jars. Once they get about 4" I consider moving them into an Exo. I'd suggest one large cork or bamboo tube and plenty of food. I feed mine more than I'd normally recommend for tarantula, perhaps 6 crickets going into the communities of 4, at least once a week and try to feed twice.
Its important to keep your eye on proceedings. I had a couple of regalis together and it became obvious one was eating all the food and shunning the other, even in a small enclosure, so I split them up.
There's a lot of joy to be had from the communities and I definitely noticed healthier pokies when kept communally.

[Jamie Brady]

thanx

You haven't mentioned which species, some Poecilotheria are more communal than others. The 3 P. rufilata I had were excellent together and so too were the 5 x P. subfusca. Both of these communities reached maturity for the males without issues (apart from my own concerns). I also have communities of 4 x P. pederseni, 3 x P. miranda, 8 x P. striata plus 3 x P. ornata and 4 x P. ornata. The ornata seem the least communal, best described as co-habitating, I suffered a loss with one group of 4 through missing one feed. I currently have mum and 30 P. striata slings, mum and 30 x P. regalis slings and 22 x P. regalis large slings which should all prove interesting.

From my own experience I find not providing large enclosures helps to make sure the pokies live communally, so I go from tubs to cereal tubs/sweet jars. Once they get about 4" I consider moving them into an Exo. I'd suggest one large cork or bamboo tube and plenty of food. I feed mine more than I'd normally recommend for tarantula, perhaps 6 crickets going into the communities of 4, at least once a week and try to feed twice.
Its important to keep your eye on proceedings. I had a couple of regalis together and it became obvious one was eating all the food and shunning the other, even in a small enclosure, so I split them up.
There's a lot of joy to be had from the communities and I definitely noticed healthier pokies when kept communally.

Thanx for sharing your expeiriences POXI -enjoyed reading. Its subfusca that im getting, I asked the previous owner his feeding routine as he's been successful for 2 years so im going to just follow on where he left.
Ive a nice piece of cork bark that i bought from e bay that im going to use. Really looking forward to getting them.
You said you had communities that reached maturity without any problems-where your referring to the males? where thet removed once they matured?
Do you have any adult females living together?

cheers peter

[Peter Lacey]

Subfusca and rufilata were the most communal in my opinion, plenty of touching and I even saw them share food. I also saw this quite a lot with the 120 ornata slings that I had at one point.


They seem to huddle together and protect when one is in moult as they all disappear and despite food always available I've never lost one to a cricket. I found subfusca quite skittish as slings/juveniles whereas the miranda and ornata would sit in the lids and not move. As the miranda have grown they've become more skittish but that's probably a good thing when it comes to feeding.
The ruffilata were the first community and all three matured into males. The difference in reaching maturity was about 6 months from the first to the last and the final male is still looking strong after at least 4 months mature and a few visits to breeders. He'll soon be put in with a 8"+ female I acquired.
Here's their initial set-up:






Here's a pic of Colin Wilson removing one of the males for me at my house last September:


The subfusca are one of my favs, as are all my pokies LOL. I had a community of 5 and have had 2 males mature so far. Its often difficult with communities to sex as unless they are brightly coloured, shiney and new you'll not know which exuviae relates to which individual. Both of these males have gone out to breeders and this morning I notice another exuviae sitting at the bottom of the Exo. I've used dorsal sexing to help get a clue of most of my pokies. Unfortunately I don't have the experience or skill that Ray has with sexing - he literally picked my P. striata up to sex it!
I'll remove the males from the communities and get these out for breeding. As the males mature well before the females there's little use in keeping them together and Ray has suggested this can encourage the females to repeatedly moult to achieve maturity and suffer because of it. If the remaining 3 turn out to be females I'll keep them together.

[Jamie Brady]

interesting

Very interesting mate, appreciate the time to reply that well. You seem to have good experience with communial lliving pokies
Im thinking one of the plus points will be I have double the chance of seeing one out on display and im looking forward to seeing how they react with each other.
There coming tomorrow morning so ill post pics in the afternoon for you to see,
Great spider pics by the way, its funny how use all look so happy in that pic! lol.

Thanx again

Jamie