What to start with

[Paul Messenger]

Hi All,
Have gotten permission to have a spider. What would be a good starting spider - my local shop recommends either a Chilean Rose (they have spiderlings now) and Mexican Red Knee. What do you guys think ? Also, I have read some books from the library (haven't got the keepers guide yet). Some say get a heat mat - Chilean Rose and Mexican Red Knee need 80F. Other books and the shop guy say room temperature is fine at around seventy something (currently the room intended for them is 21C or 70F). Should I get a heat mat or low wattage bulb if heating is required ?
Thanks
Paul

[stuart longhorn]

Hi Paul, first off congratulations on getting permission, you've got one of the hardest challenges out of the way! Now you seem on the challenge of what to choose. First, thanks for coming on the forum here and asking, we've got alot of experienced people. Pet shops vary dramatically in the quality of advice, depending very much on who is running and who is working the days you go in. If they only have a very small amount of tarantula stock, i'd suggest to take their advice with a huge pinch of salt. [actually advice on the internet can vary remarkably as you seem to have found, sometimes as nobody knows, sometimes as people with very little experience want to claim they know!]. But, regardless, when it comes to first spiders/setup etc the advice of others also just starting out is super-valuable, so i hope many others give their views.
Ok - book quality varies, please dont go with anything written by TFH, its often terrible. A great book for your stage and much beyond is Tarantula Keepers Guide by Schultz and Schultz - so i hope you've got it on order, or something like a birthday present. Please aim to get and read this before you buy. Stan Schultz has been known to contribute to this forum, so i hope he stops in here and helps advise.

Ok- what you get first is partly your preference, but both those types you list are good first choices. I would however avoid spiderlings of Chilian Rose, which can be fragile. Infact, i'd say best avoid any spiderlings, and instead go for a large juvenile or young adult. Price goes up of course, but so does the likelihood it will survive and thrive, and will be much more impressive when such a larger feeds and moults, etc. With the Mexican red knee, watch out for the urticating hairs they flick - they can be quite defensive, and those hairs are very irritating, and you dont want those in your eyes. Whoever gave you permission to get a tarantula might be put off by the hairs. Other ones known as 'redrumps' are much calmer (e.g. Brachypelma vagans), and much less prone to flick hairs, also Curly hair (Brachypelma albopilosum). Those are great first choices IMO.

If you do go for a Chilean Rose or similar, i strongly advise looking round for larger ones. They are also REALLY slow growing, so if you get small then if it survives it will grow super slow compared to others you might have got. For sure Chilean Rose and similar DO NOT need a heat pad or anything to heat, unless your house/room gets too cold in winter for you to be comfortable. Even then it will likely be fine without a heatpad - in most places outside in Chile it is constantly colder than average UK/USA room temperature - it's actually very encouraging to me the shop guy saying that room temp is fine - sounds like hes more clued up, and plus not trying to squeeze every penny from you for maximum sale! Others like the Mexican and Central American species will prefer a little heat, but setup to allow them temperature gradient, ie to make one end of a setup warm and the other cooler room-temp. With gradient the spider can choose itself to regulate. I would absolutely discourage a lamp, tarantulas are most active in dusk/night, so it will likely just want to flee from the light. Too many first tarantulas i fear have been cooked to death under heat lamps in the past. Lets avoid that! Consider what temperature range your room gets to at hight of a hot summer and the coldest depths of winter. I expect an educated guess is needed - but eg. if you know it gets *Cold* in the room in winter then heating is likely needed for those times at least. Might not need any heating in summer for example.

[Paul Messenger]

Thanks for the reply. The shop is fairly well stocked with spiders. The Chilean Rose spiderlings are captive bred by the shop. They have Baboon spiders, Red Knees, aboreal spiders (don't know what species). I was thinking about a Red Trapdoor Spider, but have read that these can be agressive and difficult to keep. Are any tarantulas web spinners ?

[Ray Hale]

Im in agreement with Stuart on his choices.I would think that trap door spiders are a little down the line. No issues with keeping them but the beginner will be dissapointed as they will never see it. LOL The web spinning tarantulas tend to be Asian or African. Haploplema lividum (Cobalt Blue) etc. Although these can be a tad feisty. My advice is to go with Stuarts choices. Also I would avoid spiderlings as they can be fragile and occasionally they die for no apparent reason and this can put the beginner off. Go with juveniles of New World species as Stuart suggests.
Shameless plug now: When you are ready consider joining the BTS. There are over 30 back issues of the journal available on line and the new ones are packed with species info, husbandry and places to get your T's from. Dont forget the BTS Exhibition in May (19th) where you can pick up most spiders and get great advice.. Details on the main page of this site.

Hope this helps
Ray Hale

[Stanley A. Schultz]

Hi All,
Have gotten permission to have a spider. What would be a good starting spider - my local shop recommends either a Chilean Rose (they have spiderlings now) and Mexican Red Knee. What do you guys think ? Also, I have read some books from the library (haven't got the keepers guide yet). Some say get a heat mat - Chilean Rose and Mexican Red Knee need 80F. Other books and the shop guy say room temperature is fine at around seventy something (currently the room intended for them is 21C or 70F). Should I get a heat mat or low wattage bulb if heating is required ?
Thanks
Paul

For the most part I have to agree with both Stuart and Ray. We, "on this side of the pond" often have a slightly different opinion on some of the details, but the spiders are the same. It's just the keeper's and the peripheral conditions that differ a little. I'm going to abuse you with my Newbie Introduction rather than try to make any specific decisions for you. If you ask me, get three of each! All 940+ kinds. Woo hoo!


WELCOME TO THE HOBBY!



WELCOME TO THIS FORUM!



DID YOU HEAR THAT? THAT WAS THE NEWBIE ALARM!

Ah! So we're newbies. We've done what everybody else does: Read all the Internet care sheets. Listened attentively to everything the expert down at the local pet shop told us. Wasted a lot of money on things we shouldn't have. Incorporated a lot of things that were useless or even dangerous. Stressed out over meaningless details while ignoring the real issues. Way overkill. That's not a criticism; I'm just delineating the problems. It's just the way humanoids are, I suppose.

We can deal with all that.

There's nothing wrong with being a newbie as long as you do something about it. After 45 years of keeping tarantulas, I still consider myself a newbie. We can trace a tarantula's ancestry back over HALF A BILLION YEARS. They've had that long to develop and fine tune their lives and lifestyles. They're incredibly complex and detailed creatures. We're gonna be playing catch-up (that's the newbie part) for a long, LONG, LONG time!

The first thing you need to understand is the KISS principle, not to infer that you're stupid. Inexperienced, maybe. Stupid, I don't think so. As proof, you can speak, read, and write English (arguably one of the more difficult languages on Planet Earth), and use a computer just fine. But, I digress. As long as you supply the basic necessities of life for your captive tarantula, the less you incorporate into its cage and care regimen, the less there is to go tragically haywire. KISS, indeed!

The second thing you need to understand is that tarantulas are like no other creature you've ever kept or even heard of before. All the ingrained assumptions and prejudices that you've been taught since childhood don't apply, and may even be dangerous to them. They're neither tropical fish, reptiles, canaries, nor gerbils, and you don't take care of them like any of those animals. One of the biggest problems with newbies is trying to get them to abandon all their prejudices and begin to look at the world from the vastly alien perspective of a huge, fuzzy spider.

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT.
MAKE SURE YOUR SEAT BACK AND TRAY TABLE ARE SECURED IN THEIR UPRIGHT POSITIONS.
THIS IS GOING TO BE ONE H*** OF A RIDE!

Because tarantulas are so bizarre and unique, you have a lot of homework to do. To begin, you need to read the following webpages.

1) Stan's Rant. ESPECIALLY, READ THE PART ABOUT NOT TRUSTING ANYTHING A PET SHOP TELLS YOU! AND ESPECIALLY, STUDY THE FOUR RECOMMENDED BOOKS.

2) Myths.... Read the entire webpage tree.

3) Care and Husbandry of the Chilean Rose Tarantula. IF YOU HAVE A WILD CAUGHT CHILEAN ROSE TARANTULA (Grammostola rosea) YOU NEED TO READ THIS WEBPAGE! If you don't have a Chilean rose you can safely ignore this one for now. Just remember that it's here for whenever you do get a rose. Or, you can read it out of curiosity. It contains a lot of hints applicable to other arid species.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The comments and instructions in Care and Husbandry of the Chilean Rose Tarantula are applicable only to wild caught G. rosea. CAGE BRED AND RAISED G. rosea are no different than any other captive tarantula and are best cared for just like any other arid species. See Growing Your Own for further information.

4) Substrate. Because you need to know about this very basic, underlying part of a tarantula's existence.

5) Growing Your Own. This is a global, game plan for caring for your newfound little buddy. You need to figure out where it is in the vast scheme of growth and development, then start taking care of it properly from that point onward.

6) If you can possibly spare the time, at least skim through the entire Spiders, Calgary website.

Lastly, be aware that this system is not the only one available. Neither is it necessarily the best one. You'll see and hear all sorts of other ideas as you go along. But, Marguerite and I have spent decades selling tarantulas to all kinds of people of all ages, and fine tuned this system so as to make it pretty much as bullet proof as it can get. Use our system at first, until you begin to understand these weird animals. Then maybe you can experiment with some of the not-so-conservative approaches recommended by others.

You need to learn to look at the world from the vastly alien perspective of a huge, fuzzy spider. READ THE BOOKS! READ THE WEBPAGES!


Best of luck. Remember, your little 8-legged Yoda is going to be giving you pop quizzes daily!

[John chambers]

Re: What to start with

Welcome and enjoy a fantastic group of people with so much knowledge.
I agree with all that's said and I have B.smithi ( Mexican red knee and .. G.portie ) chilli rose.
They are so different in mood's, personality, temperament.
One can go ages without eating and can be a worry at first.
But in saying that my B.smithi who is immature male also hasn't eaten in two year's.
So each tarantula teaches you a lot