okay so I have a new pet...

[Sinnfox]

I was about to head out on an errand when my roommate called me out to the front yard...said the neighbor had gotten me something. As I walk over I see him hide a jar behind his back and stop dead in my tracks. He assures me its in a jar so I take the last three steps and am handed a jar with a young tarantula in it O_O...I grabbed it...yeah ...my spider now. >.> Okay trouble is I have never had one before. Anyone here have one that has any tips to keep my new pet (either rose or spike depending on gender once I can get a real good look and determine that) happy and healthy? Oh, and it was apparently found beside another that had been torn to pieces...so might be a very unhappy female? or highly territorial male? o.o? Reading like crazy about them trying to make sure I know as much as I can..but any tips are appreciated

 

[Miss M]

GAH! I do not do spiders! :runhills:

 

[Sinnfox]

lol...normally I don't either..loved them as a child, then incident in my early teens cause a bit of arachnophobia...but been working on it spike/rosey should help with curing that phobia further..I hope >.>

 

[JDWest]

Cool!
I have no advice but your story reminds me of my oldest boy Orin.
He used to be completly fearless of spiders from the time he could walk, he was always picking up spiders and sticking them in my face to show me. He always treated them so softly. He used to beg me for a tarantula when he was like 5. Spiders don't bug me. My mom loved orbweavers so i grew up to treat them kindly. My husband on the other hand is deathly afraid of all spiders. My oldest made the mistake to surprisingly show one to his dad when he was around 6-7 and his dads reaction effected my son to the point where Orin is not as fearless of them now. Lmbo :lol:
He still thinks they are super cool though. I've seen some beautiful rose tarantuals in the pet stores.

 

[Sinnfox]

mine is a young texas brown...rose kneed are my favorites though, well out of tarantulas...my real fav is actually orb weaver as well ...my fear stems from a doctor not explaining things right...scared the bits out of me when he said I was lucky to still have a face o.o I was bitten on the cheek by a brown recluse o.o googling images of bites is not for the faint of heart so be warned...turns out I have a pretty decent immunity to the venom, which after being bitten is close to complete now considering I was bitten again a few years later with no effects at all...doc said it must have been a dry bite, never mentioned I could just be immune so I was terrified I'd get a "wet" bite and it ruined my love of spiders for over ten years :/

 

[JDWest]

Awe! Yeah i can totally see why that would have turned you off them!

With Orin, his dad smacked the spider out of his hand and did a dance on it! Both proceeding to scream with horror in the process.

 

[Sinnfox]

ah poor Orin..guess you can't blame poor dad though..phobia's aren't easy to deal with...heck five years ago I wouldn't have touched the jar the spider was in...still panicked slightly as I was trying to gently shake it out into its new tanks (it hung on and looked for a second like it would crawl on the side where my fingers where) proves I'm not over the phobia...but core of me still loves them cause it came over to the side of its tank near me and curled up to sleep and I was all excited to see it >.> ...in my panic I dropped the jar the quarter of an inch to the dirt in the tank and had to wait a second before trying again

 

[gulien]

You could. Not. Pay. Me. Enough. To get within 10' of that thing. To each his own; enjoy.

 

[ladysown]

in a tank, I'm good. on my boys hands... I'm good. on a known handler/trainer.. I'm good. Running free on the ground, or approaching me... well...NOT so good.

How to keep him happy and content? Not a clue... I'd be googling like mad to see how to properly keep him confined and how to make sure I knew what to feed and how to house...I've seen REALLY really neat set ups on youtube with my lad for keeping large spiders... so I'd be making that my first stop.

 

[Dood]

I have a female rose haired (Grammostola rosea)

Tarantulas are petty low maintainance, my girl is in a 15 gal with peat moss and sand substrate. She has bark and rocks to climb on and two hides, one under her heat light and one in the wet end of the tank that is kept damp and where there is a tiny water dish she cannot drown in.

They can walk up glass walls so a secure lid is needed. A short tank is better since they can shatter if they fall too far of a distance and for this reason her climbing decorations are no more than 4 inches high.

Normally you shouldn't leave live food in with them but because her tank is rather large I can keep a few crickets in without worrying they might try and nibble on her, and I put a teaspoon of oatmeal for the crickets to keep them well fed. I've never seen her eat a bug by she cannot control herself and eats right away when I offer a thawed pinky mouse once a month.

Depending on size and the temperature they are kept at they may eat every day or less than once a month. The only mess is the left over shells of the insects, and as far as i can tell they dont deficate at all but I replace the sand and peat moss once a year anyway.

I don't know if you plan on handling your arachnid but they can bite and the poisons of most species is a little less painfull than a bee sting. Some species also have irritating hairs (like the tiny prickles on some species of cactus) on their abdomens that can cause severe itching if on the skin or burning if they float into your eyes or nasal cavity so wash after handling and keep out of the wind.

__________ Fri Oct 18, 2013 8:08 am __________
You spider does have the hairs so be cautious about cleaning the cage and handling.

Texas Brown tarantulas have small coarse brown and/or black urticating hairs on their abdomen

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urticating_hairs

 

[Sinnfox]

I have her(working consensuses here is she is a girl...might find out different later though) in a smaller tank then that (with a locked on lid) but that is because she is not even half grown yet...I have another tank set up for her as she grows. husband and best friend thought it was funny watching me make two different cages, but I made the bigger one then read that they hunt better in enclosure a bit smaller in proportion to the spider itself then what I had just set up. She seems happy(I think? how would a person know if they are happy?) and was wandering around exploring it ..I read about the falling and dieing thing so she doesn't have anything tall in her tank and even the top of the tank isn't more then four inches...glad I got that right at least

I have never been stung by a bee...wasp, yellow jacket, hornet yes, even bitten by a mud dapper...but bees like me and I can hold my hands out and have them land and even pet them safely

I'm still far to scared to touch her..and she is still adjusting so probably not a great idea to touch her yet anyway...but I'll keep the washing up thing in mind if I get up the nerve to pet my new pet

 

[tailwagging]

i want a Greenbottle Blue Tarantula.

 

[Wyldrose]

Congrats on the new pet! My kids want one... lol

I bet the "torn up spider" she was found near was her molt. The molt looks just like them, the petshop here likes to hide the molts around the store to scare people lol.

 

[akane]

I respect spiders because I'm allergic to ones that aren't even poisonous but I don't fear them. I may have been bitten by a brown recluse when I was real little. I never had the gruesome bite mark but all my veins stood out and I had a fever. We only have brown recluse and fishing spiders as poisonous spiders and I didn't live near the water. My mom almost took me to the doctor which for her means the other person is half dead. I've even walked around with probably broken bones wrapped in vet wrap without going to the doctor.

 

[Sinnfox]

Congrats on the new pet! My kids want one... lol

I bet the "torn up spider" she was found near was her molt. The molt looks just like them, the petshop here likes to hide the molts around the store to scare people lol.

I hadn't thought of that...but thinking about it I'm not sure that's it...I know they are supposed to be soft right after a molt for a few days...and she wasn't at all.....I thought they hid right after molting to stay safe?...neighbor said looked like it had just been torn apart? maybe they were about to mate and a bird attacked? ...kinda hoping she isn't carrying eggs since I don't know how to go about taking care of little spiders at all o.o I will ask the neighbor more about the torn apart one though on the chance it was a molt..thanks for the idea