Has tarantula availability been decreasing?

[14pokies]

Yup and the supply is going to get a lot smaller. It’s already begun in Africa buy what you can now. The price on African reptiles is already rising y’all all screwed from being lazy and participating in Arachnobored and IG instead etc instead of lobbying congress for what y’all “passionately care about”..

 

[JonnyTorch]

If this lacey act amendment garbage passes there will be 0 availability.

I've just been getting what's on my wish list now. I'd rather have a house full of spiders that I've wanted and deal with it than miss the opportunity later.

 

[darkness975]

I've just been getting what's on my wish list now. I'd rather have a house full of spiders that I've wanted and deal with it than miss the opportunity later.

I wish I could. Problem is right now I don't have the room or the funds.

 

[JonnyTorch]

I wish I could. Problem is right now I don't have the room or the funds.

Oh the room for me is a struggle too. When I have more males mature I will donate or sell to breeders and decrease that way as well.

 

[gambite]

as an update, I actually did end up finding almost the exact tarantula I wanted at a recent expo in Long Island. This show seemed to have more vendors with sexed adult females, one in particular had several 3-5" females including a $250 5" Lasiodora difficilis female that was pretty much exactly what I was looking for (close enough to salmon pink for me). Prices were all in the $150-250 price range though for sexed subadult female. They had a really nice looking B. boehmi male and female pair as well. I guess I should have just searched more in-person at shows, because a lot of these vendors at expos are not listed here on Arachnoboards

 

[gambite]

revisiting this, having been to the expos around NY a few more times, I am still surprised at how few juvie and adult tarantulas I see available. Pretty much all the vendors have only tiny little slings in stock. The few adults are mostly wild caught. There's a weird gap in age ranges, its as if the entire middle of the tarantula inventory has vanished and now the only thing you can buy is unsexed 1" and smaller slings, everywhere. Is it like this in other places too or only the NYC metro area expos? I ironically see more juvies in PetsMart these days than in the expo

 

[Tarantuland]

revisiting this, having been to the expos around NY a few more times, I am still surprised at how few juvie and adult tarantulas I see available. Pretty much all the vendors have only tiny little slings in stock. The few adults are mostly wild caught. There's a weird gap in age ranges, its as if the entire middle of the tarantula inventory has vanished and now the only thing you can buy is unsexed 1" and smaller slings, everywhere. Is it like this in other places too or only the NYC metro area expos? I ironically see more juvies in PetsMart these days than in the expo

All the juvies you see at the box stores are wild caught or bred by a huge conglomerate breeder. I mostly do slings at expos but when I bring bigger spiders, they sell very quickly. I have rosehairs that are 1" that often people don't want because they're so small, but they're over a year old. A Psalmopoeus the same age will be 3". It's a paradox. People want big sexed females but don't want to pay for it. If a G pulchra 4i sling retails for $75, people will want a large female. When it's $350 for a 5-10 year old spider, they think it's too expensive.

As a vendor there's two options to get larger spiders-raise them up or buy wholesale that are already of size. You can't win with people sometimes. JME

 

[gambite]

All the juvies you see at the box stores are wild caught or bred by a huge conglomerate breeder. I mostly do slings at expos but when I bring bigger spiders, they sell very quickly. I have rosehairs that are 1" that often people don't want because they're so small, but they're over a year old. A Psalmopoeus the same age will be 3". It's a paradox. People want big sexed females but don't want to pay for it. If a G pulchra 4i sling retails for $75, people will want a large female. When it's $350 for a 5-10 year old spider, they think it's too expensive.

As a vendor there's two options to get larger spiders-raise them up or buy wholesale that are already of size. You can't win with people sometimes. JME

I understand the difficulty. The part that kills me the most is that I do have the budget to pay for sexed female juvie and adults and yet I still almost never see them. I was thrilled to drop $200+ on my female L. klugi (which I just added new photos of ). If I had room for one more I would pay $350 for a female G. pulchra in an instant. I know I'm probably in the minority. It just makes me sad.

 

[Tarantuland]

I understand the difficulty. The part that kills me the most is that I do have the budget to pay for sexed female juvie and adults and yet I still almost never see them. I was thrilled to drop $200+ on my female L. klugi (which I just added new photos of ). If I had room for one more I would pay $350 for a female G. pulchra in an instant. I know I'm probably in the minority. It just makes me sad.

Yeah I mean it's all about finding the balance of price point and size and species and knowing your audience. Different shows I vend are different and it depends on the other vendors present and their availability as well. But as you don't have room for one more, imagine how much space you'd need for 40 juveniles/subadults vs 40 slings that fit in a condiment cup. Now multiply that by 10. If I had a warehouse I'd keep even more holdbacks, but it's also tough cuz sometimes spiders just die. So holding them back to raise to larger to sell for more money, one bad molt and the whole profit margin is gone after 2 years of feeding.

Also, juvies sell faster. So if you raise 20 hamorii babies til they show colors and have a new sack the next year, the bigger ones will sell before you sell one smaller one. Especially with versicolor and stuff that people are worried about killing

 

[gambite]

It sounds like I am gonna have to start visiting different shows, and arriving at doors-open instead of halfway around lunch time. The vendor I got my L. klugi from was in Long Island, have not seen her any other places, and she had a markedly different inventory than everyone else, fewer spiders but almost all juvie and adult. I think she might have been the one breeding them herself.

Really one of the biggest things holding me back from getting unsexed slings is the risk of getting a male. I dont know what I would do with it. Really not trying to do the whole "find someone online to take my MM" thing these days. Maybe if I had a good contact with the vendor and knew that I could easily give the T back if it came out male, it would feel like a less risky proposition (dont even care about the money just want it to have a good home or breeding partner)

 

[SpookySpooder]

I think availability is regional and depends on the market demand. Here in the US, breeding is not as wide spread as in the UK hobby. We also have strict rules on what can be imported and what can be sent across state lines.

Couple that with the fact that every major distributor is probably importing from the same pool of sources means the US availability is quite bottlenecked. For the stuff we can't legally import anymore, we have to rely on current breeder stock to produce slings, and those people are most likely not going to be selling off their adult females.

Mature males don't last long and are often traded about for breeding.

Hence the availability of these "unobtainium" species are mostly slings.

When it gets to more popular and unrestricted species such as an Avic or a GBB, you literally find them everywhere in all sizes for whatever cost.

 

[TLSizzle]

I just spent $100 on a unsexed 1.5 inch G rosea at my expo. Was the only vendor there with any rosea. And his price was $100 no matter the size of the spider. So naturally I bought the biggest one that I (uneducatedly) guessed to be a female.

When I was studying all I could about Ts in 2017, it seemed the rosea was a hobby staple. And everyone had one. So how are they so hard to find now?

Yet I was able to get an unsexed T albo for $40 at about 2.5 to 3 inches. Saw tons of tiny slings in a bucket that read "T albo slings, $10". So the market is definitely saturated with curlys. But... I'm about 90% sure mine is a male. And I want a female so I've got one for many years to come. I'm concerned that the albo will suddenly be hard to find. So do I pick up a sling and hope it's a female while they're available and cheap?? Decisions.

 

[Tarantuland]

I just spent $100 on a unsexed 1.5 inch G rosea at my expo. Was the only vendor there with any rosea. And his price was $100 no matter the size of the spider. So naturally I bought the biggest one that I (uneducatedly) guessed to be a female.

When I was studying all I could about Ts in 2017, it seemed the rosea was a hobby staple. And everyone had one. So how are they so hard to find now?

Yet I was able to get an unsexed T albo for $40 at about 2.5 to 3 inches. Saw tons of tiny slings in a bucket that read "T albo slings, $10". So the market is definitely saturated with curlys. But... I'm about 90% sure mine is a male. And I want a female so I've got one for many years to come. I'm concerned that the albo will suddenly be hard to find. So do I pick up a sling and hope it's a female while they're available and cheap?? Decisions.

All the rosehairs use to be wild caught then Chile stopped exporting. People didn’t breed them much cuz most of the slings used to be from wild caught moms dropping egg sacks. They’re really hard to breed and grow extremely slowly. The females are notorious for eating males and it can take 5+ years to raise a male up. Most of the slings in the US come from Europe. Not like curly where you can raise one in a year or two to maturity, and the curly are still imported wild caught regularly. And if you want to breed them, it’s much easier. That’s why you see big ones for $20 on a reptile vendors table.

Ps if slings are from the same eggsack, often the fastest growers are gonna be the males. Not always, but often. If you buy 3 or something, you’re likely to get a female. If you buy 6, you’ve got near 100% odds of getting a female. I know this isn’t feasible for everyone, but just saying. Also, males are important too.

 

[TLSizzle]

Thank you!
Yea, now that I look back- I probably picked up a male rosea. Ugh. Oh well I suppose.

And you make a very good point about the albo. I'll relax a bit on looking for a female then since they'll likely be around for a good while.

 

[gambite]

Honestly I would not even fret about getting a male G. rosea. I asked this same question at the show this weekend, and got the same answer as given by @Tarantuland except with the extra caveat that all the wild caught males from before the export ban are now dead, leaving only the WC females. Thus, G. rosea males are somewhat valuable now. At least thats what a vendor told me. So if you are not against soliciting it online I would expect (hope) you could find a new home for him if needed.

 

[TLSizzle]

If I do have a male, I'd 1,000% send him to someone reliable for pairing.
That's very interesting to find out why the numbers have dwindled in the hobby though. I had no idea.