What brought you to the hobby?

[Rigor Mortis]

I'm a moderately big Who fan and John Entwistle had a B. hamorii (or possibly B. annitha/smithi, it was the 70's) and after learning that I thought, "Hey I could do that," and dove in to researching tarantulas and absolutely fell in love with the whole concept of tarantula keeping.
And also I've always been interested in exotic pets anyway. We had a bearded dragon when I was a kid and I loved her to death. It was getting pretty boring around here with no exotics.

 

[NikyeKing20]

What got me in to the hobby was my almost obsessive interest in arachnids and wanting to know them better. I’ve been collecting spiders since I can remember and have owned them ever since .

 

[MintyWood826]

I don't remember why but one day I decided I wanted a jumping spider. I never did go through with it, but I went off on a tangent and started researching tarantulas (why, I don't remember). My interest died down (a good thing too since I was looking at care sheets then!) but then revived when a teacher talked about living in Costa Rica and mentioned tarantulas/scorpions coming into his house. My interest grew from there, and then I finally got into the hobby.

 

[Katiekooleyes]

I've always had an interests in "exotic" pets. Mind you, I enjoy all animals tbh. When I was little, I wanted snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, and lizards etc. However, my parents were a firm believer that unless it had four legs and meowed, it wasn't coming in the house. They went NUTS when I got myself an ant farm when I was about 12 lol!

Anyway, years went by, and my long term ex was petrified of most exotic pets like snakes, tarantulas etc, so alas, those were off the table still. Currently, I only have to answer to myself, so now I have 2 snakes and a T, and I'm looking to getting another T for xmas.

 

[ZHESSWA]

I've always had a passion for animals, ever since I can remember. Specifically, the misunderstood ones that, to me, were amazing and my favorites (spiders, snakes, scorpions, sharks, etc.). I started keeping pets at a young age as my parents helped me and I was also responsible, I think I got my first tarantula when I was about 7 or 8. It was a full grown G. rosea from a Petco or Petsmart but I was fascinated. I had her for about 8 years or 9 years before she passed, but in that time I had been researching on the internet about all these different species of tarantula and their different sizes, shapes, colors, and attitudes. I started a small collection when I was in high school of 5 right before my G.rosea died, but decided I wanted to take a step back from animals and just focus on high school so I sold all my animals except for my red eared slider turtle (sentimental reasons, my cousin gave him to me and he was 20 years old). I was just going through high school and and then college, moved to LA for awhile, came back to Michigan to go to college and it was when I moved back April of last year I knew I wanted to start keeping animals because I knew what I was doing and was going to be settled down. I jumped back in head first with my P. murinus, H. mac, and P. irminia and the rest is history (check my profile for what I keep now lol). I'll forever be apart of this hobby as I love the animals and everything about them from their appearance, behavior, the maintenance, setting up the enclosure, the relatively inexpensiveness, such a variance in appearance between species, etc. Wow wrote a book but just felt like sharing I guess

 

[Cherri]

I have always loved arthropods, though I was always don't my with just watching them. The thing that got me into tarantulas, however, was is a bug museum for insects and other arthropods in Denver not far from where I grew up that let kids handle tarantulas (yes you read that right, they let little kids handle actual tarantulas) and from there I just knew I would have one of those one day.

No way, i held "Rosie" there about 18 years ago and wanted a T since before that.

My dad had snakes, so i was always around exotic pets.

 

[Ratmosphere]

Started first with keeping stag/rhino beetles which evolved to keeping tarantulas and other interesting animals.

 

[lostbrane]

Originally, it was to get over my arachnophobia. It worked.

Then I had to move out for school and I couldn’t keep then up there/had to part with them.

Years passed until earlier this year I felt I needed something to do because I was just sitting around at home bored as all heck. Didn’t fee like reading or playing video games so I started thinking about tarantulas again, which led to the beginning of an addiction heh

 

[DrewBarcelona]

Quite random, or maybe not. But fell madly in love with the idea of being a tough dude like Buzz, from Home Alone. The tarantula (his pet) was star of the show for me. And the idea of feeding it "mice guts" blew my mind. Back to the forum for the first time in years. Have none in my collection at the moment. But plan to go hunting for some wild True spiders in the coming weeks. Build from there.

 

[Mojo288]

p metallica

 

[Sykomp]

I just adore animals in general, and I am deeply fascinated with almost anything that lives. I love learning about T's and observing them just tarantuling away with their businesses.

 

[Luka98]

I grew up flipping rocks and looking for critters in my backyard, when i was 10 i discovered RobC's youtube channel and learned a lot about tarantulas but still leaned for reptiles back then so i got myself a beardie. Here i am 10 years later with a collection of 5 T's so far so good and many more to come. PS If anyone knows where Rob is please give me an update i love that guy and hope he's doing well.

 

[Daesu]

A youtuber called tarantula addict. Started watching out of morbid curiosity late and night and then just kinda got into it. I met him at an expo this year which was cool.

 

[DrewBarcelona]

A youtuber called tarantula addict. Started watching out of morbid curiosity late and night and then just kinda got into it. I met him at an expo this year which was cool.

Ah yes. The mellow tone of TA

 

[Nightshady]

My son wanted a T for his birthday. After doing research on which one to get him, I decided to get one as well. Now I have 12 and he has 5 haha.

 

[Ungoliant]

What about you?

I've always liked spiders and other things people consider to be "creepy crawlies." However, it wasn't until a few years ago that I began learning about spiders in earnest, and now my interest in spiders has snowballed into an obsession. (As far as my hobbies go, I don't seem to be capable of casual interest. It's either 1 or 10.)

I started keeping true spiders around that time, mostly the web-building ones I can find locally. (My favorite local true spider is Kukulcania hibernalis, and I still have several of them as pets.)

At the time, I was interested in getting a tarantula one day, but I hadn't begun researching or preparing in earnest. Then, as a complete surprise, my mother (who fears and hates spiders) gave me a mature female Avicularia avicularia (from Craigslist) for my birthday. I had almost no information about the spider (not even an ID), just that it was seven years old, likes to be petted, and was given several crickets a week. It was also in a terrestrial setup with no leaves. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to figure out that the enclosure was wrong, the feeding schedule was wrong, and she would rather not be handled at all.

I bought a second Avicularia avicularia several months later and now have 15 tarantulas. My first tarantula passed away in March 2017 during a bad molt. (I'd had her for over three years, so she was ten years old if the previous owner was correct.) I buried her under an azalea with little pink flowers the same color as her feet.

Years ago, I would never have expected to have tarantulas, but now that I do, I can't imagine not having them. My tarantulas are pets (even though I don't handle them), but they're also interesting to observe and learn about. Sometimes they are even amusing.

 

[DeepSea]

I have always been a Sir David Attenborough fan and interested in whats going on out of our everyday sight. My daughter said she wanted a tarantula which came as a shock and she set up a savings jar....... I bought her a couple of books and waited to see if she lost interest, quite the opposite. She continued to save and I kinda got drawn in. I found tomsbigspiders and that was both of us hooked. We have 7 now and lots of plans.......

 

[galeogirl]

I've always been a bit obsessed with invertebrates. My mom said it started early. I started keeping spiders and insects that I caught in the yard when I was 7 and it just kept going from there.

 

[WildSpider]

I was really getting into true spiders and was researching them quite a bit online. When watching videos on them, a tarantula feeding video popped up to watch. I clicked on it and I've been hooked ever since.

Edit:
Actually I think this was the feeding video I watched. His B. albopilosum (at 0:35) is so beautiful. Besides the actual feeding, I think it was this spider that roped me in.

 

[Enrgy]

I've always had an interest in animals in general, watching animal planet since I could talk, but the exotics always caught my eye.