Gooty ornamental

[Paul Oldershaw]

hello,iam considering getting a gooty ornamental sling about 1cm i already own a b smithi and g rosea and consider myself a small expert in looking after these spiders but know that these are different Ts and are not slings .
I would appreciate someone with more experience to give me some advice on temperature as my heating is not on in my house overnight and the temp can drop to about 62 would this be ok for a gooty sling .
Also can u feed a sling this small pinhead crickets and how often ,i have the housing cracked but any advice would be great as these spiders are not cheap and would hate to lose it as i imagine you can .

[Peter Roach]

i already own a b smithi and g rosea and consider myself a small expert in looking after these spiders

WOW, I've been keeping T's for 32 years and there is NO WAY that I would say such a thing because I dont consider myself one.

Perhaps you can teach us all a few things then.

hello,iam considering getting a gooty ornamental sling about 1cm but know that these are different Ts and are not slings .

Every species of Poecilotheria sling that i've ever seen have been a minimum of 2cm, if you are buying it at a size of 1cm is a N2 and not a sling.

Different T's and not slings ? Explain please

I would appreciate someone with more experience to give me some advice on temperature as my heating is not on in my house overnight and the temp can drop to about 62 would this be ok for a gooty sling .

Its probably slightly too cool for a small pokie sling of this size.

Also can u feed a sling this small pinhead crickets and how often

Pinhead crickets are way too small for ANY sling of 1cm and over.
How often to feed ?
As you are an expert on other species then surely you would use your expertise to work this simple thing out

,i have the housing cracked

What housing have you decided on ?

[Paul Oldershaw]

Yes i was wrong to use the word expert should have been novice but i know that iam keeping these tarantulas as comfortable as i can .
But PETER why so aggessive just because someone else has taken an interest in this hobby and your not the only one ,all i wanted was someone with more experience to give me some advice after all that is what a forum is for ,so if you can't give me any dont bother and stop being so arrogant.

[Paul Oldershaw]

And i did say small compared to some people on this forum .

[vincent winyard]

hi there paul i think you,ve got the wrong end of the stick here. pete was just trying to answer your question but needs a little more info for a more accurate answer to your question. he,s not being aggressive or arrogant just a little banter no harm intended im sure. were all here to help each other and yes some have more experience than others but like i said i think you took his reply the wrong way. bye the way welcome to the forum paul.

[Paul Oldershaw]

I have forgotten about it, and still hope peter may give me some advice sometime because he does sound very knowledgable.
Thankyou for the welcome vincent .

[vincent winyard]

your very welcome paul. by the way if you put care sheet for gooty ornamental tarantula in your search square there should be enough info there to give you some idea of what there like ie housing heating and so on. i would really recommend you do your homework on these t,s as they really are a different kettle of fish compared to smithis and rosas.

[Paul Oldershaw]

i will do my research vincent ,i may be aiming to high with a gooty because i do know there are other arboreals out there that are easier to care but thankyou for the the tip for thae caresheet i will definetly take a look .

[Peter Roach]

Paul, P metallica's are very easy to keep as long as you dont over complicate things.

A small container approx size of a 1/2 pint glass will last it for at least 6 - 9 months.
ADSA do some really good containers for £1 that are ideal (so good that i have several dozen of them)
A few inches of substrate with a small piece of bark standing upright is all that is needed.
The important thing is VENTILATION.
A ring of small holes just above the substrate and then another line of holes an inch or two above them and so on up to the lid and then holes in the lid.
Wet the bark once a week and feed a cricket approx 1/2 the size of the sling and away you go !!
I have 8 P metallica slings kept like this, I got them at 2cm and they are now approx 6-7cm. so they seem to like it as they are feeding and moulting on a regular basis.


ADSA containers are the ones with the grey lids on top shelf




My P met's are in the containers on the top shelf to the right of the blue trays

[Paul Oldershaw]

Thankyou for that peter them pictures are very impressive and your advice is very much appreciated, i guess iam very much a novice in this hobby.
Could you tell if the temperature needs to be watched as this has always been a concern ieven with the smithi and rosea but realise now that these are hardy tarantulas .
Did you mean asda for the containers .

[Peter Roach]

Could you tell if the temperature needs to be watched as this has always been a concern even with the smithi and rosea but realise now that these are hardy tarantulas .
Did you mean asda for the containers .

As P metallica comes from India, they should be kept on the warm side.
My spider shed is kept around the mid to high 70's on average but can sometimes drop to low 70's during extremely cold weather and rise to high 80's in hot weather.
This doesnt bother me as I dont know anywhere in the world where temps are exactly the same 24/7/365.

Yes I do mean asda for the containers.

I suggest that you read >>>> THIS <<<< and >>>> THIS <<<<

[Paul Oldershaw]

thankyou again peter,i feel i owe you an apology for my earlier reply so there you go i hope no hard feelings .
Maybe sometime i can give you some advice on smithis and rosea you do sound like you need it LOL.

[Eduard Haumann]

Hi Paul, I'm also new to the forum but like you slightly experienced in keeping T's.

After keeping mostly "Docile" new-world terrestrials for a couple of years I decided to go for a P irminia (I also really wanted a P Metallica, but they were around £350 a pop in my native south africa at that time for a 5-6cm juvenile. Aside from the price, I noticed very fast and defensive on the care sheets... )

When I got the P irminia I was immediately and without warning made aware of the difference in temprament and speed. Being only used to the docile T's before, I was quite happy with my choice of a "semi-defensive/skittish", rather than the VERY FAST AND DEFENSIVE one...

The point i'm trying to make: Maybe go for something intermediate as a step up to help you get a sense of what you will be getting. I am sure somebody like Peter or Vincent will be able to reccomend a suitable species where there is less risk of hurting yourself, and more importantly the tarantula?

[Peter Roach]

After keeping mostly "Docile" new-world terrestrials for a couple of years I decided to go for a P irminia (I also really wanted a P Metallica, but they were around £350 a pop in my native south africa at that time for a 5-6cm juvenile. Aside from the price, I noticed very fast and defensive on the care sheets... )

What are the chances that those care sheets were written by people who had only kept docile NW's before and then were 'pre-scared' (is that a word ? ) before they even saw a Pokie. ?
Also many caresheets are written and copied by people with no real knowledge of the spiders that they write about.

Yes, Pokies are fast . . . compared to most commonly kept terrestrials. Compared to many arboreal tarantulas . . no they are not. (H mac's and Tapi's are much much faster for instance)

Defensive ? No, i dont think so.
At the moment I have approx 60 Pokies (slings to adults) and I have NEVER seen one a in defensive pose.

[Kyle Reid]

poecilotheria

Hi all,

Not to disagree with the above post but my P.metallica may be the exception to the rule as she can be abit cranky and will regularly give a threat pose when transferring for cleaning etc However this may be due to this species being photosensitive? Still Poecilotheria is a wonderful T to get into. I am still a novice keeper but please be aware everyone that each tarantula will have it own individual personality

cheers

kyle