Is Gooty Ornamental worth owning ??

[Paul Welsh]

Hello.I'm interested in this species.However,I've heard that you rarely see it,so I was wondering if it is really worth the money?Thank you in advance Peter Roach's comments will be GREATLY appreciated

[Jamie Cooper]

Hello.I'm interested in this species.However,I've heard that you rarely see it,so I was wondering if it is really worth the money?Thank you in advance Peter Roach's comments will be GREATLY appreciated

Hi Paul,

I think any species is worth owing, as long as it is something you are genuinely interested in. In other words, I wouldn't get one just for the sake of having one.

I currently have 11 P.metallica in my collection. 1 adult female and 10 spiderlings. It's a species I have always wanted to keep, but the expensive price tag and limited availability made them very difficult to obtain. However it does seem that spiderlings are becoming available more often and the price is dropping. The Spider Shop are currently advertising 2cm spiderlings at £30.00 each, which is the cheapest I have ever seen.

I've found them to be quite straight forward to keep and they are good eaters. My spiderlings are on show all the time, but my adult female is always hidden away in her cork bark hide. As expected, I see her very rarely. But when she does make an appearance she reminds me just how beautiful she is and I fall in love with the colouration all over again.

I wouldn't break the bank to keep any species, no matter how much I wanted it. But if you've got the cash to spare and you are genuinely interested then I would buy one.

Jamie

[John chambers]

Re: Is Gooty Ornamental worth owning ??

Lee beck breeds these and I have two sling's.
Both on show and at 2" the blue is showing too.

[Peter Roach]

I have 8 P. metallica's bought as 2cm slings, all now between 3-4 inches. Out of the 25 arboreal species that I currently keep these are the species that I can guarantee that will always be out on show when I look. At the moment they have a large piece of flat bark but mostly they are out on the front of the tub in plain view.
I have read articles that this species is extremely light shy but so far I havent found this to be so, it is possible that they may change this behaviour if and when they get moved to larger homes. Either way they are a very pretty species and I think that they are well worth the money.

[Paul Welsh]

Jamie,John,and of course Peter.Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.I have made up my mind,and shall be purchasing both a P.Metallica AND a P.Subfusca sling very soon.I've not kept pokies before,but I know that Peter has many,so that's good enough for me! Cheers guys.

[Peter Lacey]

P. subfusca and P. metallica have to be my favourite Poecilotheria. Quite stunning and progressively get better, although large P. metallica do get quite dark.

They are easy to keep, neither requiring temps to be too high. I keep my P. metallica fairly dry and the P. subfusca gets the occassional soaking. Temps of around 75F seem fine. Arboreal enclosure with cork tube or similar, a few inches of substrate.

There are 2 forms of P. subfusca - the highland and lowland, which although are the same species, display locational differences. The small form tends to be paler but larger and the highland form darker, but as they pass maturity they'll get darker making it harder to distinguish.

All Poecilotheria, and much of the Asian arboreals, possibly all arboreals will shy away from disturbance, this might just be turning the lights on. But, when they make an appearance they are stunning, and these two are my favourites for good reason.