Silliest T advice you've ever heard at a pet store

[JMoran1097]

i've never had a really dumb suggestion because I already know all that I need to know about the T's in there so I never ask. I usually just see awful feeding techniques and terrible conditions in most pet stores.

 

[peterspiderling]

What is the worst or funniest advice you've ever gotten from an under-informed pet shop employee?

Mine would have to be one of these two statements. Both were said by the same girl and are somewhat paraphrased here:

A: "That there Tiger Rump molted yesterday. It looked like it was having a hard time 'cuz he was flipped over on his back strugglin to get outta' the old skin. I helped him out by grabbin' him with these here tweezers and flippin him back over"

B: "Yeah, this Orange Baboon Spider is pretty docile. Here, i'll just open up the box and grab her so you can handle her."
-To which I replied: "Wow, that's a crazy threat display, you're gonna get bit, be careful."
-To which she replied: "Naw, she ain't mad or nuthin'. She does that all the time."


I have since purchased the fasciatum as he appeared to suffer no ill affects from being manhandled. They can keep the OBT tho'.

hahahahaha thats friging awsome!!!! the funnist thing i have heard in a long long time

i havent had any bad advice for nothing cos i dont bother asking incase i hear what every one else hears, "bullshit". but there are so very very very over priced! B.Smithi spiderling, very very very small.....£55 P.Regalis spiderling.....£74 who on there right mind would pay that!

 

[peterspiderling]

True, it is very sad. I'm usually a very honest person, but I didn't feel all that badly about not educating them. I asked if I could buy all their 'dead' ones for dissection. I pay $1 each and have bought 9 Ts like this: 2 P. murinus, 1. H. lividum, 3 A. avicularia, 1 G. rosea, 1. M. robustum, and 1 T. blondi.

thats f***ing nutts!!!!!

 

[R.W.]

"If a Rose Hair bites you, and you don't get to a hospital fast, your dead. Your heart will literaly explode in your chest"...

wtf

 

[worm's girl]

we asked the girl at that handles the reptile and fish department if the t we were looking at was wild caught, and she said "well it came in last night and so far hasn't showed any signs of being wild"... we left and the first thing worm said was "what? is it supposed to beat on its chest like tarzan?" :wall: this coming from a girl who thought a red rump was a rose hair. :?

 

[jen650s]

Best/worst thing I've heard is Ts can't drink, so you have to mist them every day. At this point the pet shop guy gets out a professional plant sprayer, pumps it up to maximum pressure and procedes to cause an incredible downpour into the otherwise well set-up A. seemani enclosure we are looking at. The very pissed T comes out of it's burrow and starts throwing threat displays like mad. He then proceeds down the row opening the tanks and flooding every T out, and seemed amazed that I thought he was loony.

What makes this even better/worse is that the pet shop is generally reputable, deals only in exotics and all the Ts they sell are captive bred by the owner (who I have known casually for years). Needless to say the pet shop guy has moved on to wherever fired pet shop guys go.

 

[jen650s]

i've never had a really dumb suggestion because I already know all that I need to know about the T's in there so I never ask. I usually just see awful feeding techniques and terrible conditions in most pet stores.

I wish I knew all I need to know

 

[jeff1962]

When I bought my first T,I went to petco to get something to house it. "It" by the way,is a 2 inch B. Smithi . While I was looking at the small critter keepers, a girl ask me if I needed some help.To see what kind of answer I would get I told here I was looking for something to house a small T.(thankfully I had already found this forum!).Seeing that I was looking at the critter keepers,she proceeds to tell me that I should get a 30 gallon long tank because my spider,she says,is going to get at least 7 inches long and I will just be wasting my money because I will be constantly rehousing it. LOL Gotta love those big chain stores !

 

[Water spider]

"Poecilotheria ornata is a docile species, fit for beginners."

"oh yes, that full grown Brachypelma smithi is six months old"

"If it doesn't have hooks in it legs it's female"

 

[Arachnobrian]

Most recent pet shop error found, while picking up crickets.

A B. smithi with a professionaly printed label, stating it is an aboreal "T" which will thrive in a aboreal setup.

When I mentioned to the clerk the error, he refused to accept that the label imformation could inaccurate.

So I choose to leave it be, and asked the clerk for my cricket order. When the clerk asked me what I was feeding.

My reply, "A collection tarantulas."

Response, "Oh!" with a supprised look.

 

[Reacker]

On the other hand, I've recently had an excellent pet shop experience (thought I'd share something positive for Monday). First the most recent negative; went to a shop in a small town I was traveling through and they had one T. Housed in a 20g tank, barkchips, no hide, no H2O, and a wicked heat lamp. I tried to edumacate the owner, but um, not gonna happen. I bought the T out of pity (he'd already had it 3 months), which I usually will not do, as it just perpetuates the collecting and mistreatment of more T's. But, I was a sucker for this one- great big G. rosea throwing threat displays worthy of any OBT, figured she deserved to live. I was looking for some small mealworms, they were out, so I asked if there was anywhere else to buy T food. He reluctantly named the only other shop in town, so I thought I'd stop at that one on my way through as well. I walked into the second shop and I about Cr$#&ed a brick! Little tiny store, clean as a hospital, and they had over a dozen T's, all housed in KK's or 5g tanks, all on coco fiber, with hides, ceramic water dishes (no sponges), no crickets in the tanks. And the selection: T. blondi, Megaphobema robustum, G. rosea rcf, B. smithi, Avic. avic (tiny slings for $3.00 each!!!!). I talked to the owner at length, and apparently a local hobbyist had been working w/ her and she'd obviously been listening to him! She tries to stick w/ CB, but wasn't sure on some of the rosy's, but the rest were all CB sub-adults. ALso, on each T, there was a w/tank & w/out tank price, generally only $12.00 more for the complete setup. She does this to encourage people to keep them appropriately, and also sells the T Keeper's guide (and has read it!). She did tell me she was afraid of handling them and asked if I'd get my purchases out of the tanks myself. So, I showed her how to do a safe transfer using the old cutoff top of a liter soda bottle trick, and how to safely pack the T in a deli cup. So, if you're traveling through Twin Falls, Idaho, definitely stop and score some sweet T's, knowing that there is at least ONE decent petshop out there. :clap: Happy Monday! Tony

I live in Twin Falls as well, and I'm sorry to report that the place, MJPets, is going out of business and will soon to be closed.

I bought a Skeleton T and a Pinktoe sling from her in the past, they were excelently cared for. I bought the pinktoe for only $3. She currently has a bunch of redknee slings that are going for $8 dollars, originally ten I believe, but as I said, she is going outof buisness.

I can honestly say that her store was the best pet store I have ever had the pleasure to shop from. She had all sorts of interesting things like the generic rodents and such, birds like quale(don't think I spelled that right), and various reptiles which were housed quite well. Most interesting was her display of inverts. She had, as was said, many different T's, all well housed (though some that needed to burrow didn't have enough substrate, but they did have hides and the conditions were good otherwise). She also once had these interesting looking milipedes, Indian stick insects, and also cockroaches. I bought all of her roaches (two species of which I think I got enough to barely start a colony). Her large size crickets were typically fully mature females that were, needless to say, much larger and same priced as those that you would get from a larger chain dealer. She also had a variety of sizes of the crickets, even those small enough to feed to the slings that she sold. When you bought them, you could be assured to get all healthy crix, not the bag of half dead mutilated individuals that you get other places. The store was the cleanest I have ever seen, no trace of the typical mess you see at other places.

I can't say enough good about the place. Always shopped there first when I could.

The other guy to wich you refer (I believe the guy on mainstreet), is sadly still in business and continues to treat his animals poorely. Keeping have a dozen or more baby Red Eared sliders in small KK in dirty water is a regular feature of the place. The other animals are kept similarily, as are the other T's he has. I have never purchased anything from him and never will.

I know this is sort of off topic, but I thought it should be mentioned that one of the best pet shops in existence is about to disappear while shops that house their animals like sardines and care nothing for them are still doing well.

 

[xjak3yx]

i had advise from a local exotic store that a cobalt blue was an excellent T to start with. there carm , docile and you can always see them because they dont dig like other Ts and can be handled easily i fink that was wrong ...... and a while after the store closed. i wonder why

 

[Deathla]

once at pet city, the employee told me that a chilean rose hair (which like most pet stores were kept horribly) can grow up to 10 inches and can jump 3 feet in the air.

 

[Warren Bautista]

always remember to put your avic sling in a screen cage 3x3 ft and keep humidity at 5%

 

[crpy]

reading this thread makes my head hurt real bad, mommy make it go away:wall: lol

 

[irascible_pixie]

lol... The pet store we go to (I don't want to put the name) doesn't know anything about Ts... NOTHING! One girl that works there is in charge of buying all the Ts and she is the only one that will feed, water, or clean the cage! Everyone else seems to think they will die if they even look at them too closely. At one point the store manager had the poor girl convinced that she had bought "illegal and poisonous" Ts... They were Rear Horned Baboons and Starburst!!! I was so mad!! Grrrrrrrr. Some people are just retarded!

MJ

 

[Kris-wIth-a-K]

haha

This was before the pet store closed down.

Q....Is the A. Geniculata a male or a female?:?
A....It's not an "A. genicualata or whatever you called it, its a white striped bird eater:wall:
Reply.... Thats the scientific name but do you know if its a male or a female.
A. No its not and idk.



Q.... What kind of tarantula has burrowed in here. (the title said venezualen suntiger/bird eater priced at $200 for a 5")
A.... Psalmopoeus Irminia. :wall:
Reply.... Those don't burrow.
A.... Well, apparently they do.
Reply.... Lets see.
A. fine

T= Haplopelma Minax


I told them the T's needed water because they had none.
There reply was nah they are ok for a few months without water. You just have to keep feeding them. Thats when I realized how rediculous some people are...:clap:

 

[hardlucktattoo]

I only go to pet stores if i cant get my daily dose of stupid somewhere else

The all time stupidist thing i have ever heard

"When they are about to molt throw some crickets in there they will help chew off the old skin"--pet store manager Rocky Mount NC Petco--

 

[johnharper]

We just leave the crickets if the tarantula does not eat them right away the crcikets won't hurt the spider because its way bigger than they are and they are naturally scared of things bigger than them.


John

 

[CharlaineC]

"sex it are you mad their no way to sex a tarantula. I know that because i have had them for years and i hav a degree in biology."

To that i to my female grosa off my shoulder and took her in a nice grip for sexing and showed him. then did the same to his male.