A little help with my first Chaco golden knee please?

[Jordan Cassidy]

Hi guys
Im Jordan, im new to the hobby, and got my first T, a juvenile G. Pulchripes on the 10th of march, and have a few questions I hope some kind person could resolve so I can stop worrying. Here goes:
1) Burrowing. He/she spends most of its time underground, I haven't seen it come up since the day we got him, though I know he must come out, probably at night as I see new webbing. I was wondering if this.is normal for his age and breed?
2) To heat or not to heat. This is causing me major stress, I am unable to find a reliable source on this and was hoping for an answer here. There are so many conflicting opinions out there and I was wondering if the temperature could cause his burrowing. U am still waiting for my thermometer to arrive, and needing advice on whether to heat or not to heat, and if so how long.it should be heated for?
Thanks for reading,sorry for the long post

[Peter Roach]

1) Burrowing. He/she spends most of its time underground, I haven't seen it come up since the day we got him, though I know he must come out, probably at night as I see new webbing. I was wondering if this.is normal for his age and breed?

Perfectly normal. Slings and juvies will tend to hide a lots (everything likes juicy little spider to eat) generally the bigger they get, the more they will be out.

This is one reason why people have a few spiders of different species, at least you will have a good chance one will be out on show.

2) To heat or not to heat. This is causing me major stress, I am unable to find a reliable source on this and was hoping for an answer here. There are so many conflicting opinions out there and I was wondering if the temperature could cause his burrowing. U am still waiting for my thermometer to arrive, and needing advice on whether to heat or not to heat, and if so how long.it should be heated for?

Unless you live in a house where you get frost on the inside of the windows . . dont bother with heating.

Any temperature between mid 60's to mid 80's will be OK.

Dont forget that their natural habitat is variable and the temperature isnt constant 24/7/365 !

The average UK house is approx 20C at this time of year which quite acceptable.
Likewise the temps will obviously rise during the summer months and and will obviously drop a few degrees in the evenings. . . just like in the wild.

Re thermometer. You have just wasted your money.
If you are OK in a shirt then your spider will be OK.
Thats it.
No special formula.
No expensive thermostats and heat mats to plug into them

I suggest that you read THIS it will answer all of your questions about temperatures.






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[Jordan Cassidy]

Thanks for the advice I can stop worrying now, always thought heating spiders seemed a little odd, seems like it would be odd for a mostly nocturnal animal to require strict temperature controls!