Really? There are barely any T specialists period, I'm surprised there are any T vets at all.
I have been a vet tech for a long time and have yet to meet even an extoic vet who works on tarantulas. I had one exotic vet who was willing to work on them, and had kept a few himself. However, he even admitted that he didn't know any more about them then the average hobbyist, and certainly nothing medical that he would feel right charging for.
yea I agree with what you are saying.. but I have met a vet that specializes in exotic pets. More recently he started running tests and research on venomous critters such as tarantulas. the guys at my LPS got him to come to a seminar at one of our monthly society meeting. He demonstrated how to anesthetize tarantulas, ways of healing cuts and wounds, Tarantula anatomy, and a few other things. He did mention that his goal is to make it a common to take pets like tarantulas to vets. as of now there is not many books or much info out there for medicinal practices on these kinds of pets.. Like I mentioned in other posts Ive made( about T. vets) I am realy bad with names so I cant recall his name.. It would be nice if I could get him to post a thread here in AB about this stuff...
Is it not wasting a perfectly good tank AND a perfectly good tarantula by putting it in a tank that might ultimately cause it's death? I'm not one who subscribes to the smallest tank possible theory (except for very small slings that can disappear in an over-sized tank) because I think it helps encourage more natural behavior, but you could just use that tank for ONE spider, and fill it with more substrate. I don't think a 10 gallon is "huge" for a rosie. It's even more wasteful if that same tank ends up resulting in the death of TWO tarantulas because they gain access to each other and ultimately fight. Besides, pink toes and rosies are pretty much as opposite as you can get except both being NW. One is arboreal, loves humidity. The other terrestrial and a dry habitat species. I don't see how you can be providing proper humidity levels for both species at once in that tank, for starters.
All of which are things that, like Shell put it,
Take a little time on this board (or even just read a book like the TKG) and you'll find out how to use CO2 to knock out a tarantula, what to put on your tarantula if it starts to bleed, and I sure hope that the vast majority of people here know basic tarantula anatomy. Until he moves beyond playing mad vet scientist and it actually becomes studied in vet schools it's just shelling out money for what the average hobbyist can do.
oop:."Exotic" pet vets means birds, snakes, we even have an occasional giraffe at the vet school's exotic animal clinic. But tarantulas are defacto not included because there is so little physiological information about them. There's a big difference between a gila monster and a tarantula, so whatever kinds of "tests" he's running on "venomous animals" (see how broad that term is?) the problem will still be that there aren't any "tests" for tarantulas. In order to "test" something, you have to have a baseline to compare to so you know what is normal, what are the indicators of abnormality and what those indicators imply about the health of the organism overall. There just isn't that type of information around for Ts sadly so everything he's demonstrating to you can be garnered by using the search function here on the AB- including surgical intervention on cysts, repairing wounds, anesthesia, etc. None of that would be considered technical veterinary knowledge as it is all practiced by hobbyists and was more or less the result of trial and error. Very different than real pathological studies. In order to make tarantulas the kind of pet you can take to a vet, you first have to understand how their bodies work and that is the part we don't really know much about. Beyond that you are just sort of applying common sense and inferring from other species what a good course of action might be, which is not what would be called a "vet that specializes in Ts" at all. AB members as a group have preformed all these services on some of their own pets, does that make them tarantula veterinary specialists? Understand the distinction? I'm not being harsh/ciritical, just to clarify since tone is very difficult to appreciate in an online post. Just trying to explain what the difference is and why you can't consider any "exotic vet" specialists to be specialists in Ts, even if they have glued and abdomen or two back together.
I forgot to mention that he has a Phd in this, that is exactly what he is trying to do, and he is studying it may not be a standard for vets but thats what he wants, and I never mentioned him charging money for anything. My point was there is someone out there trying to change things.. if you think he doesnt know anymore than you do then maybe you should be a Doc no?
I am a doc lol
Trust me, it is NOT too heavy. A 7.5" LP is heavier than any 5 or 6" G. rosea. Also, you're right, glass tanks are expensive. That's why I, and many hobbyyists, don't use them. There are better alternatives that can provide better safety for your Ts and won't leave you with an empty wallet.
There's no reason for it to become common practice to take Ts to the vet. That's just wasting money. I don't pay anyone to mow my grass because I can do it myself. Same with a "T vet", I can do the same thing and everything I would ever need to do can be found on here. There is no special equipment, medicine, or procedures that they have, that we don't. For Ts, at least.