Am I the only one who thinks T's need some space?

thumpersalley

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For terrestrials I pick an enclosure thats 3 times their body length wide & 2 times their width. So a 3 inch T would get a estimated 7-9 inch long enclosure by about 6 inches wide. For arboreals I pick an enclosure thats 3 times their length tall. So again a 3 inch Avic would get a 9 inch tall by 4-6 inch wide enclosure. Its worked great for me. Even ones who are pet holes I can tell theyve been all over inside the enclosure by the digging & webbing in new places. Kim
 

briarpatch10

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who?

Seriously no offense dude but that method/theory is kind of stupid. A tarantulas vision isn't that far so it doesnt really care. Also putting a 1 inch sling in a gallon is crazy it, cant catch food and you cant find it. lastly a tarantula doesnt move aout a lot, even at night, because ive documented it before at night. Look at a b smithi it wont really move around at all!!!:D:D
who was that one for?

My boehmei walks around off and on all night...my nhandu is all over her tank day and night..........being able to see them walk around is why I have t's !
 

Kathy

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I totally agree with the original poster of this thread. It bothers me too when I see full grown tarantulas in little enclosures, then stacked on top of each other to boot. I have 6 tees, they are all in a nice size, decorated enclosure and enjoy the freedom of moving around. Out in the wild the world is a huge place! In the evenings I watch them come out of their webs and they walk around, poop on the side for me to clean up later, stretch out their legs. Keeping them in a tiny enclosure is like keeping a whale at Sea World which is just a speck the size of the ocean they swim in. Little brains? How would you know, unless you were a tarantula in another life, don't assume you know how they do, or do not think. Human arrogance, sigh.
 

Kathy

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This is a pretty common misconception among less experienced keepers and those wholly uninitiated to the arachnid thing. They really just don't need that much space. Truth, I swear.

I've heard it said that a female terrestrial/fossorial tarantula can live her entire life without ever leaving the area of a few square feet around her burrow. This is provided of course that she isn't compelled to relocate due to weather or a shortage of food/water. From what I've seen in my 4-ish years of keeping this is probably correct.
Kind of like an inmate in a 8x8 cell. They are alive, but do they live?
 

xhexdx

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You're trying to imply that tarantulas have feelings like humans, Kathy.

They don't.
 

malevolentrobot

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You're trying to imply that tarantulas have feelings like humans, Kathy.

They don't.
i go to look up how to spell "anthropomorphist" and you beat me to replying again! {D

anyway, i think her statement is anthropomorphist, as well. she is saying living as in "quality of life" in terms of the T having "feelings", right? but they dont, not like us.

i've seen no harm come to my Ts in smaller or bigger setups (not extremes like a 1" in a 1gal, mind you) as long as they are set up correctly, with adequate levels of sub and hides for the terrestrials. my two cents, for what its worth.
 

briarpatch10

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This is a pretty common misconception among less experienced keepers and those wholly uninitiated to the arachnid thing. They really just don't need that much space. Truth, I swear.

I've heard it said that a female terrestrial/fossorial tarantula can live her entire life without ever leaving the area of a few square feet around her burrow. This is provided of course that she isn't compelled to relocate due to weather or a shortage of food/water. From what I've seen in my 4-ish years of keeping this is probably correct.
in all fairness a few square feet is hardly a tupperware bowl....
 

Cbarr

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Ur statement is pretty close to what i was thinking, just because we r the only animal in the world that can comprehend that we will one day die we r not the most important thing on earth, come on when do we as humans try and fix something in the world right after we screw it up, if ur tarantula can only turn in damn circles all day its not happy, how do i know its not happy u ask, simple because i am a human and i know everything. So is it ok to put a w.c. specimen in a tiny little container maybe this particular spider liked to walk a hundred meters away from its home every night hopefully common sense and not arrogance will kick in and u will see the direction i am going in.

P.s. Being cocky and trying to make people on a FORUM lmao feel inferior does not make u any bigger or more important in real life, plus it cant make up for any short comings u may have in life;)

Oh and no im not anti human, I am just a big fan of good old common sense




I totally agree with the original poster of this thread. It bothers me too when I see full grown tarantulas in little enclosures, then stacked on top of each other to boot. I have 6 tees, they are all in a nice size, decorated enclosure and enjoy the freedom of moving around. Out in the wild the world is a huge place! In the evenings I watch them come out of their webs and they walk around, poop on the side for me to clean up later, stretch out their legs. Keeping them in a tiny enclosure is like keeping a whale at Sea World which is just a speck the size of the ocean they swim in. Little brains? How would you know, unless you were a tarantula in another life, don't assume you know how they do, or do not think. Human arrogance, sigh.
 

briarpatch10

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isnt it just as easy to say, We will just have to agree to disagree! We all have our favorite way to set up our T's. Budget,space, plain old "thats just the way I want to do it" ....the way we do it is just the way we do it!
 

xhexdx

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Ur statement is pretty close to what i was thinking, just because we r the only animal in the world that can comprehend that we will one day die we r not the most important thing on earth, come on when do we as humans try and fix something in the world right after we screw it up, if ur tarantula can only turn in damn circles all day its not happy, how do i know its not happy u ask, simple because i am a human and i know everything. So is it ok to put a w.c. specimen in a tiny little container maybe this particular spider liked to walk a hundred meters away from its home every night hopefully common sense and not arrogance will kick in and u will see the direction i am going in.

P.s. Being cocky and trying to make people on a FORUM lmao feel inferior does not make u any bigger or more important in real life, plus it cant make up for any short comings u may have in life;)
...circles?

Since I'm relatively certain your P.S. was addressed to me, I'll address you back.

If you perceive me as cocky, that's an error on your part. My posts may be blunt, and I don't sugar-coat things, but I have contrubited quite a bit to this site and to other hobbyists. Run a search, my posts speak for themselves.

Your comment about shortcomings in life is quite childish, and really shows the kind of person you are. It also (to me) completely nullifies any value the rest of your post may have had, which was (again, to me) very little.

Added by edit:

Oh and no im not anti human, I am just a big fan of good old common sense
That's really ironic, because your post was completely lacking any of this 'common sense' you speak of.
 

billy28

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I completely agree with death999. I think it is ridiculous to keep a 3.5" T in a 4.5" enclosure or a AF G. rosea in any kritter keeper. Its just common sense.
 

malevolentrobot

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Ur statement is pretty close to what i was thinking, just because we r the only animal in the world that can comprehend that we will one day die we r not the most important thing on earth, come on when do we as humans try and fix something in the world right after we screw it up, if ur tarantula can only turn in damn circles all day its not happy, how do i know its not happy u ask, simple because i am a human and i know everything. So is it ok to put a w.c. specimen in a tiny little container maybe this particular spider liked to walk a hundred meters away from its home every night hopefully common sense and not arrogance will kick in and u will see the direction i am going in.

Oh and no im not anti human, I am just a big fan of good old common sense
i was under the impression mature males were the ones that wandered, yes. not so much the females, however. ime so far, none of my Ts move around a lot, i'll admit. maybe its because i confine them and they are "unhappy", or maybe its because they are actually thriving. i do everything else as close to right as i can, by researching and being on this site a lot, getting info from experienced keepers who have done this for years in the hobby, trying to recreate what knowlege they pass down to us getting into the hobby.

i guess i truely wont know if i am doing things correctly or not until i try to breed my Ts, seeing as how that seems to be the benchmark.

I completely agree with death999. I think it is ridiculous to keep a 3.5" T in a 4.5" enclosure or a AF G. rosea in any kritter keeper. Its just common sense.
i think everyone here agrees with that, its more of an issue of, e.g. an adult rosea in a 5gal or 10gal being overkill when it would do fine in a 2.5gal.
 
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xhexdx

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I sure hope all these guys don't keep snakes, lizards, or any other type of animal that typically wanders acres of land on a daily basis...
 

malevolentrobot

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I sure hope all these guys don't keep snakes, lizards, or any other type of animal that typically wanders acres of land on a daily basis...
well, actually... i let mine loose in my house so they can wander as much as they like since they always seem so unhappy in their cages. it helps the insect problem in the house too.

that's actually the only reason the Ts are in cages, otherwise they'd be out as well :rolleyes:
 

Kathy

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Here's the deal.......NO ONE, including YOU, XHEXDEX, know what it is like to be anything but human - you just assume that you know how all other living creatures think and feel -but that is impossible to know. Humans are so arrogant it is unbelievable. It would be so awesome that someday when people like you die (not that I want that to happen to you any time soon now..just sayin) that you will discover that life is life and that humans are not superior to any other living thing. This may come as a shock to you, Mr. XHEXDEX, but just because YOU say something, that doesn't make it true.
 

Evil Seedlet

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Here's the deal.......NO ONE, including YOU, XHEXDEX, know what it is like to be anything but human - you just assume that you know how all other living creatures think and feel -but that is impossible to know. Humans are so arrogant it is unbelievable. It would be so awesome that someday when people like you die (not that I want that to happen to you any time soon now..just sayin) that you will discover that life is life and that humans are not superior to any other living thing. This may come as a shock to you, Mr. XHEXDEX, but just because YOU say something, that doesn't make it true.
We don't know, but we can make darned good guesses based on the behavior we observe over years and years. By your logic, you have no idea that a T WOULD like a large space to live in. If we don't know if it likes a small space, we don't know it likes a big one either, and since we don't know, we probably shouldn't keep T's, right? By your logic, I have no idea if my cat likes it's ears scratched because I am a human and I just have no frigging clue as to how it feels.

But that's wrong, isn't it? I know my cat likes it because he rubs my hand when I don't pay attention to him, closes his eyes and purrs and smiles when I do. I don't know *EXACTLY* what it's like to be a cat, but I can make good guesses as to what he likes, hates and wants.

It's the same with a spider. If you give *most* 5 inch T's a 20 gallon tank, he will set up shop in one corner and rarely leave it. If you watch a T in the wild, he will dig a hole and live in it for 99% of his life as long as nothing makes him leave (like someone else mentioned), only leaving to walk a few feet away to find food now and then. From this we can gather that a T does not need gallons and gallons of space to live in.

I think someone backed you into a corner and you left the original argument to cling onto another because you knew you were wrong about the space a T needs. The only problem is that while it may be true you can't know *EXACTLY* what a T is thinking, you don't really need to in order to make it a happy home, so saying we don't know how they feel really isn't relevant to this thread.
 

Terry D

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For terrestrials I pick an enclosure thats 3 times their body length wide & 2 times their width. So a 3 inch T would get a estimated 7-9 inch long enclosure by about 6 inches wide. For arboreals I pick an enclosure thats 3 times their length tall. So again a 3 inch Avic would get a 9 inch tall by 4-6 inch wide enclosure. Its worked great for me. Even ones who are pet holes I can tell theyve been all over inside the enclosure by the digging & webbing in new places. Kim
+ 1 on this. A few of my enclosures are larger but the extra space is hardly used in my observation.

In the case of t's that rarely use their hides- I believe they have accepted the entire enclosure as their burrow- so why the need for excess room? I've been out early morning, late evening, and at night near A hentzi colonies and have still not found anything but mature males out actively crawling. I've never even observed one entirely outside a burrow- only at the mouth. A. hentzi web trip-lines at the mouth of their burrows and wait for the prey to walk over. I would almost bet that other nw terrestrials behave in the same fashion.

You're trying to imply that tarantulas have feelings like humans, Kathy.

They don't.
Joe, Good one. There's too much of this comparison going on, although I'm slightly guilty of this myself, ie chatting with them when doing cage mainteneance, etc. {D The only anthropomorphic comparison I could make thus far would be regarding terrestrial t's- They're the arachnid equivalent of human couch potatoes. However, they can do that and stay healthy. We Can't.

You finally hit the nail on the head with the herp-keeping comparison. I'll bet a few of those complaining about too little room may keep some "roving" reps as well.

Bottom line. Tarantulas need considerably less room than just about any other wild pet. :)

Terry
 

xhexdx

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Here's the deal.......NO ONE, including YOU, XHEXDEX, know what it is like to be anything but human - you just assume that you know how all other living creatures think and feel -but that is impossible to know. Humans are so arrogant it is unbelievable. It would be so awesome that someday when people like you die (not that I want that to happen to you any time soon now..just sayin) that you will discover that life is life and that humans are not superior to any other living thing. This may come as a shock to you, Mr. XHEXDEX, but just because YOU say something, that doesn't make it true.
Kathy,

Learn how to spell my username, unless you enjoy looking like a fool.

Now to use your own quote against you:

but just because YOU say something, that doesn't make it true.
I suppose I have to assume you're referring to anyone, not just me. That being the case...

It would be so awesome that someday when people like you die that you will discover that life is life and that humans are not superior to any other living thing.
On a side note, how exactly do you know what will happen when we die, Kathy?
 

Kathy

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Evil, ahh, noone backed me into any corner. It's what I believe and what I have always believed. Bottom line, I can't prove they understand more than we realize, and you can't prove otherwise. So I will keep on believing that living creatures other than humans have much more feelings and thoughts than arrogant humans believe. We just don't speak the same language and can't understand what they say. And you can just go on believing that the world revolves around you and all other life is inferior to yours. And when we reach the pearly gates, we will see who is correct.
 
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