Why do you enjoy keeping tarantulas or other bugs as pets?

[WulfSpider]

I am absolutely fascinated by them even though i am terrified of spiders and bugs in general o.o can't help but be curious about them ya know?

 

[Scar]

So much variety, low cost, low maintenance, small real estate, and they are so AWESOME! I have actually almost completely lost interest in reptiles all together after discovering the powers of the tarantulas.

 

[EulersK]

I wish there was a docile T the size of a small dog. Id teach him to play fetch and sleep at the foot of my bed.

I tried finding the video and failed, but a few years ago there was a Discovery Chanel special about prehistoric life. They had a segment of a giant tarantula taking down what equated to a modern deer. No (lethal) venom, they just stabbed their prey to death. I'd name it Pookie.

 

[fttwinmomma]

Guess I'm going to go along the same lines as everyone else. Low maintenance, not needing attention. I used to be a complete arachnophobe just here until recently. Something clicked one day and I decided I wanted a tarantula, I also kind of like the whole 'heirloom' pet. Plus they are fascinating and the added bonus that it freaks almost everyone I know out lol..

 

[jakykong]

I want one that webs exactly for this reason. Even considering my next T, it looks like I'll only get to witness the cricket dance for some time.

OBT might be a good choice for you, then. (If you're willing to deal with the attitude. Not really all that hard.) Fast growers, and web like nobody's business. They're ridiculously cheap slings, so you might be able to get one along with whatever your next T is going to be.

 

[le-thomas]

Scientific interest. It's like a really internal and domestic hobby where you participate alone at home. But then it's also like a community maybe and something that you can share with other people, knowledge and specimens and stuff. So yeah. Just like an amazing, ancient predator in a plastic box in my closet, doing its own thing without much need for me.

 

[boosh96]

I have a thing for T's since they're really just fascinating. And, as my dad once put it, these things "thrive on neglect." My Lp and P. irminia, as well as.my brother's G. rosea, are so much easier to care for than my reptiles and frogs, it's not even funny.

 

[seacowst]

i was facsinated by the things other people did not like since i was a kid (including bugs), so naturally i fell in love with this blog about eating bugs (girl meets bug), and once i saw them i thought that they were like me odd,and just looking for somebody to be friends with, so i googled them and found this site that never updates there imformation and i saw obts,rosies,smithis,and more and fell in love even more.so all and all i like them because they are a non human version of me

 

[Scolopeon]

I had a grandad who used to take me on walks as a kid, he would show me ant mounds, spiders and caterpillers, this is where the fascination started, our family has always liked animals, so it was natural to me.
He knew two older kids who would catch reptiles, we only have a few in the UK but they would catch common lizards on the baked tarmac by a bridge, basking in the sun and slow worms, One day he had a present for me, in two large margerine tubs, a slow worm and a common lizard, this was one of the most exciting days in my young life.

The woodland area i'm from also has mounds of cut grass, again one of those exciting days rumaging through them and catching slow worms, I caught one that was over 2 feet in length once! Sadly they only eat select food items like worms and I was too young and the computer was too early in developement to research properly, so i'd let them go after a few weeks.
My grandad was a legend though, he taught me so much, this is where my loves of boxing came from too... He used to like horse racing which never appealed to me, going round there was an adventure.
Sadly he died of diabetes related illness, diet controlled too.. He was late sixties to early seventies. He just wouldn't give up those salty peanuts, haha.
Anyway, enough rambling..

I used to always bait Tegenaria gigantea webs in my garage, using a wiggling stick, programs like Steve Irwin and Mark O' Shea fueled this passion, and I would see Tarantulas and dream of owning them, so I tried to catch the biggest Tegenaria, some of them were huge, small T sized, one female had a 7cm leg span, big for a female of this sp, males can get to 10 cm, all legs! I was trying to compensate for wanting a Tarantula, but wasn't allowed for reasons unknown.
I used to go on forays with a bug tub into woods and outside peoples houses, catching those house spiders and a few months a year, the big orb weavers.

My first exotics were giant millipedes, stick insects and praying mantises, these kept my want for a Tarantula at bay, but it still nagged me, seeing a Chilean Rose in the shop used to eat away at me haha.
When we went to windows 95 I discovered another exciting avenue, research! I cold see things like praying mantises eating birds, amazing!

I was about 12 when my mum caved, took me to a reptile shop where I held and bought my first T, a Chilean Rose... I could't believe I finally owned one at the time!

So I can resonate with a lot of the posts here, they are fascinating... For me it started with catching and keeping ordinary UK spiders, the way they moved, looked so alien and spun a crazy variety of webs.. Tarantulas are like a primitive extension of this, what dinosaurs are to birds.
They get large and hairy for inverts, have interesting movement and are easy to care for and addictive to collect, there is so much variety. Feeding time is always fascinating, i'll never get bored of it, it must be in their suspenseful way or moving.

Now days I get what I like, with the small crutch of when I have money, breeding is another side of it, I have dabled in, but want to get serious with that.
When all these blue spiders surfaced a few years ago the exciting came rushing back to me, this is a great hobby to me.

Sorry for the uber trip down memory lane, and thanks to the op, for promting me to recall it.

 

[salmonstudio]

That's also one of the reasons I love them, they pretty much thrive on neglect. How many other pets require all of 2 minutes a week to care for, and can live happily in an old food container if necessary? They don't need to be walked, there's hardly any cleanup, they don't smell, they don't make noise, they can be left alone for days or even weeks... they're really the perfect pets

i totally agree with these. Tarantula is the answer for 'lazy busy' persons. LoL

 

[Heckboy]

Car doesn't smell like wet arachnid
Never have to clean a large smear of arachnid excrement/vomit off the floor
Absolutely no training necessary
No crazy emotional quirks like tearing up the house when left alone
Won't ruin the furniture
Won't get into loud fights with neighbors' arachnids at 3:30 AM
Won't dig up the lawn/garden
I can mount dead arachnids without looking too creepy about it

 

[Stan Schultz]

This is a question I get a lot considering I own tarantulas, scorpions, and breed Chinese praying mantises for pest control. A lot of people ask me why I keep these "Critters" as pets, so I thought I'd ask some of you the same question. Why do you like raising T's or other arachnids or insects as pets?

What about you?

I have always been infatuated with anything that crawled, slithered, swam. And, if it was slimy and snapped at me, that was frosting on the cake!

At a very early age I had grown bored with the usual goldfish, garter snakes, mice and rats, and graduated to sea lampreys, boa constrictors, and a variety of "unnormal" plants like Asian pitcher plants (Nepenthes), orchids (e.g., Cattleya, Paphiopedilum), exotic cacti (e.g., Lophophora), and others. Then, very soon after opening our own pet shop, I ordered a dozen Texas brown tarantula (putatively, Aphonopelma hentzi). And the rest, as they say, is history.

These days, I occasionally run into people who think that I need therapy, constant adult supervision, or meds. I have the conflicting opinion. THEY'RE THE ONES WHO NEED THE THERAPY, ADULT SUPERVISION, OR MEDS!


But, I'm just sayin'...


Enjoy all your little 6, 8, 10, or 50 legged wonders!

 

[iPippin]

I've loved insects ever since I was a child. Especially beetles and spiders. I would tie the beetles to a string then throw them in the air and they would fly. They become my beetle kite. As for the spiders, my auntie would usually give us fighting spiders and she would have them fight each other to the death and it fascinated me.
Well.. I dont make my ts fight or anything but I just really love insects. Also, we mostly spend most of our time in our apartment onstead of our house so i cant have any large pets in our apartment so i opted for these tiny beings.

 

[nolan]

Prior to getting into this hobby I was petrified of spiders then after alot of begging and pleading I got one for my son which after awhile he lost interest and it became my Tarantula after a few weeks I bought a second one and have been buying them slowly ever since

 

[sugarsandz]

I got my first tarantula from my little sister because she got bored with it, I was a bit nervous with it at first. I had arachnophobia bad until a few years ago but now I love spiders. As for why I keep tarantulas which I now have four of. . . I find them therapeutic and extremely beautiful. My spiders are slow and need only the basics to survive, I envy this because I think many of us own to much material stuff and move through life to fast and we lose track of ourselves. My cats and dogs might sit still for short periods of time but they still bounce off the walls and run around like the apocalypse is coming and I love them but I also love my spiders which are the complete opposite. I also find taking care of them takes focus which keeps my mind from wondering into a million different places.

 

[BaddestRuffest]

Well my story is similar to most, I've grown up with a keen intrest in all insects and inverts so having my own collection to admire is the next step for me

 

[Palespider]

Because everything about a T is absolutely fascinating to me. The way they move. The way they interpret their entire world through vibrations and air movement is just astonishing. And compared to other inverts that do the same, their perception seems to be so much more acute, it really is amazing! And their colorations, they're literally, living, breathing, works of art! I think T's are the most beautiful creatures on earth!

 

[Rose Marie]

Having a variety of mental issues, owning T's and other critters tend to soothe my mind and help with sensory over load. They all have personalities of their own too which makes them very interesting to work with. My OBT slings tend to have the most..."colorful" personalities haha

 

[Bipolar Spider]

Bipolar and OCD, it helps both.

They don't waffle on about their day and I get a nice miniature habitat to create how I like.

 

[MissHarlen]

My dad was a dealer back in the 90s and he always told such amazingly cool stories about his experiences. When I was little he had 2 tarantulas, a C. lividus and a P. regalis. I found them so fascinating and scary I just loved it. He got rid of those two Ts when he had to move, and about 10 years passed before he got himself a pinktoe and I was hooked once again. I begged and begged to have my own and he eventually got me an Aphonopelma hentzi I named Susan.

I guess the reason I love them so much is they are so low maintenance but it's so rewarding to see them thrive. I am really squeamish about animal excrement, and even reptile poop is a little too much for me, so having a pet that doesn't have stinky poop is am A+ in my book. And they are so inexpensive to care for. Yeah, you dish out a lot of money at the beginning buying the spider, the tank, the substrate, and the decor, but after that the feeders are cheap as heck, and the longer you're in the hobby the more your supplies accumulate, so eventually you can just reused enclosures.

It's also because they come in almost every color of the rainbow. I must have all of them xD