[Chicxulub]

My sweetheart, a (female) colombian lesser black tarantula, originated from southern america.

I think this hobby will escalate quickly. You know what I mean...

 

[KarlHungus]

 

[raventree78]

Glad she is at your house and not mine Serious question, what do tarantulas eat / how do you feed them? Thanks.

 

[Chicxulub]

They mostly eat invertebrates like roaches, crickets, grasshoppers, caterpillars... The biggest specimen also eat small rodents like mice. Especially theraphosa blondi, stirmi, apophysis are renown for that.
But kept in a terrarium, its better not to feed them vertebrates, they could seriously harm the spider. I also couldn't hand her them, I would feel sad for the mouse.
at the moment she is also much too small for eating such large prey.

One just throws the living food into the enclosure and she'll take care of that.

 

[Reed Lukens]

We have both tarantulas and tarantula hawks down here. The hawk is basically just a large wasp that lives on eating tarantulas. Just an interesting but not well known fact.

 

[cromag]

When I had my place in the Zuni mountains it was right in a tarantula migration route so every October they would be everywhere for a week or two. One night one of my cats came running around the bedroom after I had gone to bed and I got up to see what was going on. Got my attention!!

 

[raventree78]

Very interesting. Those tarantula hawks are terrifying though.

 

[Jcharmin92]

A good buddy of mine had a rose hair tarantula that used to eat mice. It was a big one too and one day he was moving it from it's cage to clean it and it bit him on his finger and his reaction was priceless 🤣. He tried to fling it off but that thing was in there deep and the flinging didn't work, when he got it off it looked like someone took a sharp pencil and stabbed his finger two times. 😳

 

[skarrd]

i hae a rose hair it started out as my stepdaughters ,but she was to busy with school and it became mine,this was before i found out they live 30 to 36 YEARS,lol. she was about the diameter of a pencil erasure and now is about 4 inches in circumfrence/leg span,when she stands up and looks out you can see her fangs,they are about 1/4 of an inch long,so would def hang on to a finger.never thought i would get attatched to one ,but watching her catch and eat the crickets,and the little happy dance afterwards,yeah it works
also @cromag as a kid we lived outside of Flagstaff and there was a migration time there as well,curious creatures

 

[devils son in law]

My son had a Tarantula for years and we would feed "Archie" crickets mostly, or any small bugs we could catch in the summer. He was very docile.

One day he came to me crying that Archie had died, sure enough he was motionless on his back and then I noticed a second spider in the cage. He had moulted during the night left a perfect shed in the middle of his cage.

 

[Dgmich]

I had a couple years ago. A rose hair and a pink toe. The pink toe was extremely aggressive. The rose was a docile and laid back arachnid. Had em both for over 9 years. Very interesting creatures. My wife who was deathly afraid of spiders finally got over her fears and after a couple years was holding the rose quite often. They became friends. LOL. I would consider a Goliath bird eater if I were to ever revisit them.

 

[Chicxulub]

I wanted a tarantula for at least a decade, but always something came inbetween.
Two or three years back I had already bought a big enclosure either for a theraphosa, xenesthis or Brazilian salmon pink or similar in size... Now, finally I felt the time is right and at one point one has to get started...
So I looked up in the small ads market, if there is something interesting.
(If you buy online here in winter it could be harmful to the spider at minus Celsius temps...)
I was delighted how many people are into spiders and terraristics.
Plan is to get some more, just boght a shelf for more terrariums.
I don't want hundreds of them, but some more slowly one after one.

Will keep you updated

Interesting stories, thanks for sharing, much appreciated here.
Best wishes!

 

[skarrd]

i was gonna try and get a pic of her standing up against the glass,so could see her fangs,but i guess i jinxed it by saying something,lol
i will eventually get a pic

 

[Jcharmin92]

i hae a rose hair it started out as my stepdaughters ,but she was to busy with school and it became mine,this was before i found out they live 30 to 36 YEARS,lol. she was about the diameter of a pencil erasure and now is about 4 inches in circumfrence/leg span,when she stands up and looks out you can see her fangs,they are about 1/4 of an inch long,so would def hang on to a finger.never thought i would get attatched to one ,but watching her catch and eat the crickets,and the little happy dance afterwards,yeah it works
also @cromag as a kid we lived outside of Flagstaff and there was a migration time there as well,curious creatures

Awesome!! They are pretty cool little/ big creatures. It's the only spider I have ever held and I about shat my pants 😅. Not a big fan I have owned some kick ass snakes though

 

[David D]

I'm an arachnophobe is I'll stick with dogs and cats.

 

[Chicxulub]

Spider, cat or dog, they are all carnivorous fur monsters...
Spiders are creatures that I better keep behind glass, I dont think I would handle them. Nonetheless, they are extraordinary and fascinating to watch.
my tomcats would agree on that, haha.

Next week iam going to get 2 slings of theraphosa stirmi.

 

[Dgmich]

Yep on the holding them part. We were fully aware they can brush their body hair off, and the little hairs can play havoc if they get in your eyes or nose holes. Mother Nature gave them some very fascinating defense mechanisms.

 

[skarrd]

finally got the pics of the baby and her fanges

 

[Chicxulub]

I put her in the final enclosure (90x45x30h).

 

[Chicxulub]

now with an other sexy girl in the spot