Buck Tedrow <tarantula200plus@hotmail.com>

[Immortal_Sin]

Buck Tedrow

Positive

This is my second time ordering tarantulas from Buck, and I have to say, I've never been less than impressed.
He packs them very well, and they are always healthy, and as advertised. His prices are excellent as well.
I wouldn't hesitate to buy from Buck!

 

[Crawling_Terror]

Positive

I've bought the last 3 males from him, and never had a problem, quick and easy to deal with.

Hazy

 

[Garrick]

I bought a male from Buck. Actually, all I paid for was shipping, and he packed it wonderfully! He's a prompt, careful, and professional seller of tarantulas. I would readily do business with him again if the need arose.

-Garrick

 

[Maggie]

Positive

Even though it was extremely cold here the spiders from Buck arrived here in great shape. The heat packs were even still warm! I havent done a lot of business because of just getting into the hobby but i would definitely buy from him again.

 

[Weapon-X]

Positive

just received 6 poecilotheria slings today at 5:30 from buck, he is a true professional they were packed really awesome, despite that it was 21 below today they all arived fine and active, i got one hell of a deal too! 110 for all shipped next day! 1 p. rufilata, 2 p. formosa, 3 p. ornata all were the size he said , matter of fact 2 of the ornatas were at least .25'' bigger and the redslate is like a .5'' bigger! he keep in good contact also, i'd gladly do business with him again for sure---Jeff

 

[gphx]

Buck Tedrow - a warning

This warning is to benefit you, not me.

Buck Tedrow, who otherwise seems to be a fairly nice guy, is selling a lot of tarantulas currently at rock bottom prices to finance some needed medical equipment. Now comes the problem. I recently bought a parcel of 13 tarantulas from him. Upon arrival, 10 out of 13 tarantulas reasonably large enough to be sexed by the epiandrous fusillae method were male, 1 of the remaining 3 was inconclusive. They were not guaranteed as females, but such a ratio is decidely skewed. I contacted Buck and he agreed to send replacements, including 5 specimens that were 'guaranteed female' plus one 'possible female', as well as 2 tarantulas too small to be sexed. Mind you that all of the 6 were large enough to be sexed by a competent person. 5 out of 6 of the 'females' were in fact male. One has legs like corkscrews from being packed just prior to an obvious molt, something I had advised Buck that he had done on the previous shipment and asked him not to do again. He did it anyway, and as a result this tarantula will be unlikely to be able to feed itself or molt successfully and will most likely die. Of the 2 tarantulas too small to be reliably sexed, only 1 was alive.

So, I had a shipment of 13 sexable ts, at best 10 of which were male. A follow up shipment of 6 sexable ts, designed to remedy the situation by providing me with females, contained 5 males. In total, 15 out of 18 sexable tarantulas sent to me were male.

I hesitated to post this warning due to Buck's life difficulties but for a few things. First, in these economic times everyone is having financial difficulties. Second, I noticed much the same situation on previous purchases from Buck with many to most ts maturing male. Third, other people have reported having identical experiences with him. To add insult to injury, I was buying from Buck rather than from a wholesaler or breeder (quite likely at still lower prices) because it was obvious that he needed the money and could use a hand.

Sex ratios on unsexed lots are ideally random. Imbalances will happen from time to time. When they happen in the extreme and with consistency, something is not right. When multiple people report the same experience over time, something is really not right, and it becomes difficult to assign the situations to the categories of ignorance and chance.
I am posting this in the hopes that others do not end up spending hundreds of dollars and end up with a lot of tarantulas that they can do just about nothing with. It is almost funny that Buck argued how marketable male tarantulas are yet just a few days before he was offering to give them away free for the cost of shipping.

Be careful out there.

I notice that almost all of those reporting good experiences with Buck purchased males.

 

[esmoot]

Positive

It has been a while since Buck has sold anything that I know of but I though this needed to be posted. After reading that last post when it was new I was kinda worried. I had already spent at least $800 and was in the middle of buying more from him.

There has been enough time and molts that I can report that the ratio of males to females is very normal. I have been able to sex many of them and at least half have turned out to be female.

I woud do business with Buck again without any worries.