Has anyone ever killed one of your tarantulas?

[nicodimus22]

I'd personally double box them, should be good unless someone hits it with a 720 swanton knee drop from the top of the building although I wouldn't put that past some postal service employees lol.

But then it sounds like they would suffocate!

 

[The Grym Reaper]

But then it sounds like they would suffocate!

It's not as if it's hermetically sealed lol, it's just an extra layer of padding, when I've ordered Tarantulas from Poland they've come packed in a standard vial/tub lined with tissue that's packed into a polystyrene box lined with paper/poly chips that's then packed into another box lined with poly chips, they can survive a 5 day trip packed like that easily.

 

[Andrea82]

It's not as if it's hermetically sealed lol, it's just an extra layer of padding, wheI I've ordered Tarantulas from Poland they've come packed in a standard vial/tub lined with tissue that's packed into a polystyrene box lined with paper/poly chips that's then packed into another box lined with poly chips, they can survive a 5 day trip packed like that easily.

Most breeders ship them like that here as well, and that is just for one night. Good packaging, but hell with opening
I always feel like I am playing with those Matrushka dolls or stacking cups. But definitely prefer that to a flimsy box with a loose spider in a delicup....

 

[cold blood]

Moral of the story: Don't ship stuff at all

Yet that's definitely not the case, as probably 99% of properly packed ts survive the ordeal just fine. Heck,probably more than half of the terribly packed ts survive...lol.

 

[Jeff23]

I order stuff from Amazon Prime all the time. They are my Walmart. Almost all of the damaged goods I have received have been due to terrible packaging by the shipper.

 

[Jeff23]

Yet that's definitely not the case, as probably 99% of properly packed ts survive the ordeal just fine. Heck,probably more than half of the terribly packed ts survive...lol.

I agree. I have ordered 100+ T's in numerous orders. I had two dead slings. I don't think their death had anything to do with shipping companies because in each of the two cases there were multiple slings that were healthy.

 

[Crone Returns]

I would just like to chime in on this - I used to work overnights at Fedex in a delivery warehouse as a package sorter/picker and the people that they hire to do that job are extremely unpleasant (generally drug addicts/people on probation/generally unsavory characters) and do not at all care about their jobs. I was in school full time and didn't have much choice and it fit my schedule and paid decently so I went with it. It was a seasonal position (holiday job) so it was only for a few months.
The process:
Packages are unloaded from trucks (thrown/kicked/pushed), loaded onto a conveyor belt (thrown/stacked) where they are then brought to the correct area of the warehouse to be removed (thrown/pushed/kicked/dropped) and scanned/sorted (thrown/kicked/dropped) onto large wooden pallets. These pallets then become a kind of tetris/jenga game to fit as many as possible without the stack collapsing (which happens often) and to stack as high as possible. Small packages are frequently used as building blocks and wedges that are shoved in small gaps to prevent heavier boxes from shifting. These completed pallets are then wrapped in plastic wrap, put on a pallet truck/lift and brought out to sit in the cold until being loaded onto trucks.

If a package was marked "fragile" it would purposely be dropped multiple times, accompanied by sarcastic exclamations of "oops!" each time. If a package is marked "this end up" it was specifically placed upside down.

I will forever be skeptical about ordering a live animal that would potentially have to go through this process.

Yikes! Too bad you couldn't get vid and language and sell that to a tv station.

 

[RepugnantOoze]

The heater is what did it. Honestly, it's very easy to avoid - I just had to water about twice as often as I usually needed to. It just took me too long to realize that.

This was a huge issue for me this winter. I was also my first winter with slings/tarantulas at all. I did a lot of humidity checks and managed to keep my babies alive but the paranoia was unreal. I didn't realize before getting into the hobby how humidity would be the biggest challenge!

 

[Paiige]

This was a huge issue for me this winter. I was also my first winter with slings/tarantulas at all. I did a lot of humidity checks and managed to keep my babies alive but the paranoia was unreal. I didn't realize before getting into the hobby how humidity would be the biggest challenge!

Same. I picked up my first sling in October (had intentionally avoided slings prior to this because they terrified me) and now I have a bunch - I feel like I was watering them every day to fight the dryness from running the heat all winter. Even my big Ts huge water dishes dry out really quickly. I've been a nervous wreck while my slings have been molting in the last couple weeks, worried they're gonna get stuck. No issues yet but keeping humidity up has been a full-time job this winter.

 

[nicodimus22]

Same. I picked up my first sling in October (had intentionally avoided slings prior to this because they terrified me) and now I have a bunch - I feel like I was watering them every day to fight the dryness from running the heat all winter. Even my big Ts huge water dishes dry out really quickly. I've been a nervous wreck while my slings have been molting in the last couple weeks, worried they're gonna get stuck. No issues yet but keeping humidity up has been a full-time job this winter.

I live in an apartment with radiator heat, and the humidity in the winter is typically 10-20%. It's just bone dry in here. I water them every single evening, and sometimes wonder if I should do it more often because they dry out so quickly. Haven't lost a sling yet, so I guess it's working well enough.

 

[Jeff23]

Our humidity in the winter months here in upstate South Carolina is fairly low but it has rained often enough during our winter this year. My over-sized terrestrial sling enclosures create other side effects that add work for me (extra feeding, battle to keep up with sling location). But it makes the moisture issue a non-issue.

Extra substrate slows down the drying process and over-sized water dishes also never go dry. I have to keep mine this way since I travel occasionally on my job.

@poec54 provided the idea of using standard picnic cups to me in this forum. They are plastic and deeper than standard water dishes. I use them on all of my adult and juvenile terrestrial tarantulas. They are also nice in that you can put a cup inside a cup and make replacement of the water dish fast with no cleaning required.

For my arboreal T's, I have at least one tall vial (similar to types that are used to ship tarantulas) and on some of them I have a vial up high and down low. I also keep a wide based shallow dish specifically for humidity (that goes dry really fast). I put holes in the enclosures that allow use of a syringe to easily refill these dishes. When you have 100 of them you need shortcuts to make this easy for yourself.

The one negative of using these tall vials as water dishes is that some slings want to convert them to hides. More than once I have been unable to refill the water dish because there is an occupant when I open the lid. I guess they must relish those memories of riding Federal Express. Both of my C. bertae have refused to give theirs up and even take prey into the vial to eat.

 

[Rittdk01]

Yet that's definitely not the case, as probably 99% of properly packed ts survive the ordeal just fine. Heck,probably more than half of the terribly packed ts survive...lol.

My favorite spider was sent loosely in a large deli container with dirt and a sponge. Horrible packaging to say the least, yet somehow she survived.

 

[cold blood]

My favorite spider was sent loosely in a large deli container with dirt and a sponge. Horrible packaging to say the least, yet somehow she survived.

I recall that...stirmi, too...wasn't it.


Are you 100% positive that your fav isn't a P. cam or G. pulchripes?

 

[Nephila Edulis]

Not human has ever killed any arachnid in my care but... my dog ended up turning a little phlogius into a chew toy after it got out due to faulty construction on the setup.

 

[Rittdk01]

I recall that...stirmi, too...wasn't it.


Are you 100% positive that your fav isn't a P. cam or G. pulchripes?

Lol I love them as well. The p cambridgei just molted again and is getting big.