Chaco going "ballistic":)

[Kenny]

Hi all.

Last week I thought I should give my female 6-7 inch Chaco a "halloween-treat", and I decided an anole, and I dropped the anole in there, oh geez, holy smokes, she went through a "baboon - cobalt - blue - minax - tantrum"

She went into threat postion for about 15 minutes stayed that way. I think it was a display of all defensive postions a tarantula can show off
Finally I had to check her when these 15+ minutes had passed, so ( she is sooo docile ) I started to touch her legs gently with a pen and she gently took one down one by one, when I gently touched the leg and finally she was in "normal' tarantula position with all legs down.

Now, 5 minutes later she went inside the half-buried pot that I have for her ( which she never normally go inside to ) and stayed in there for the rest of the afternoon.

I think I got the 'message": no more anoles

Kenny

 

[MrT]

I want a Chaco really bad.

What is a anole, a lizard?

E

 

[Bjorgly]

Yes, an anole is one of those small green lizards that tend to be cheap and are used for feeding inverts occasionally. They can however put up a fight and injure a valuble pet.

Mark

 

[Vys]

Lol, nice 'hint'

Lilla gumman gillar nog inte alls odlor

 

[Tarantula Lover]

yup

thats about it!!!:8o =D

James

 

[Joy]

Originally posted by Kenny
[She went into threat postion for about 15 minutes stayed that way. I think it was a display of all defensive postions a tarantula can show off
Kenny [/B]

LOL Tarantula kata!

Joy

 

[Immortal_sin]

my G rosea did that one time to a dead pinkie LOL
It was a definate 'get that thing out of here' message, and I've never attempted a pinkie with her again.
Some of them just don't seem interested in anything but good old fashioned crickets!

 

[Kenny]

Yes,,she is a cricket girl.

Hi.

Yes, crickets is her menu I think.

She finally came out from her "pouty position" inside the pot and went to the normal corner of "attack".

I put a big cricket in there and it was gone in less than a second.

I remember when I put a meal worm in there and she went tip-toeing, when the worm moved beneath her and she really looked like " Pheeew, is that food???" I should have known.

This lady wants one thing: crickets.

I just say: girls?!?!?!?.

Kenny

 

[Vys]

Haha, anyway, you can always try locusts or lesser grasshoppers.
Perhaps disgusting cockroaches ?

 

[Kenny]

Hi.

Yup, man vet inte vad de vill ha..

( reading swedish to english : "Yup, you don't know want they want )

My "little" chaco girl got the point through with me.

Crickets: Yes.
Anoles: No!

She's really big when she got mad.

They're big and docile. I just love chaco's.

Kenny

 

[Kenny]

LOL

Hi..

I don't know what she's doing, but I just caught her with a "ton" of substrate that she was carrying around and while she did this I had a cricket in there and she ignored it and then when she had dropped the substrate she just attacked the cricket , like, "I am busy now, I'll eat later".

Kenny

 

[Tranz]

Re: LOL

Originally posted by Kenny
Hi..

I don't know what she's doing, but I just caught her with a "ton" of substrate that she was carrying around and while she did this I had a cricket in there and she ignored it and then when she had dropped the substrate she just attacked the cricket , like, "I am busy now, I'll eat later".

Kenny

I would like to get a Chaco. I noticed that this site, in its "care sheets" section, rates a G. Pulchra a 3 and a Chaco a 5 on a 1-10 scale of difficulty to keep. Would you know why a Chaco should be considered more difficult to keep than a G. Pulchra or a rosie?

 

[Code Monkey]

Re: Re: LOL

Originally posted by Tranz
I would like to get a Chaco. I noticed that this site, in its "care sheets" section, rates a G. Pulchra a 3 and a Chaco a 5 on a 1-10 scale of difficulty to keep. Would you know why a Chaco should be considered more difficult to keep than a G. Pulchra or a rosie?

Couldn't tell you, I've never figured out where those numbers came from. I treat my Chaco slings exactly the same as I treat my Pulchra slings and they're doing well. Both go on relatively long premoult fasts which might move their difficulty up to a 2 in my book. If these guys are 3 & 5, what's the 1 for? A pet rock? =D

 

[Tranz]

Re: Re: Re: LOL

Originally posted by Code Monkey
I treat my Chaco slings exactly the same as I treat my Pulchra slings and they're doing well.

According to the care sheets, the G. Pulchra needs medium humidity and the Chaco needs low humidity. Wouldn't the Chaco be easier to take care of because of its lower humidity needs?

 

[Code Monkey]

Re: Re: Re: Re: LOL

Originally posted by Tranz
According to the care sheets, the G. Pulchra needs medium humidity and the Chaco needs low humidity. Wouldn't the Chaco be easier to take care of because of its lower humidity needs?

I pay no attention to humidity, so no. Ambient indoor humidity is about 40% RH here which is more than enough in my experience. All small slings get slightly moist substrate, so I'm sure their humidity is somewhat higher. An adult Grammostola gets dry substrate with the occasional water bowl flooding.

My experience has been that with a water dish to provide hydration on demand (or regular mistings with tiny slings), humidity, per se, is a non-issue and I think the care-sheets out there are full of crap on the subject. Since Stan Shultz himself often makes posts to the ATS mailing list reiterating how he tries to keep Ts as dry as possible in general because of the benefits of avoiding mites and mold, I can't be completely full of crap on this one either

Some Ts genuinely need moisture, but that's not the same thing as humidity. In a normal, well ventilated tank, you can be adding water to the substrate such that it is moist, yet the ambient RH doesn't much exceed the rest of the room. If I lived in the middle of New Mexico, I would do something about raising the humidity in the *room* itself to 40%-60% RH, but I would never waste my time trying to regulate humidity on a tank by tank basis.

 

[Tranz]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: LOL

Originally posted by Code Monkey
I pay no attention to humidity, so no. Ambient indoor humidity is about 40% RH here which is more than enough in my experience. All small slings get slightly moist substrate, so I'm sure their humidity is somewhat higher. An adult Grammostola gets dry substrate with the occasional water bowl flooding.

"40% relative humidity" - how does that relate to the 75-80% "medium" humidity that the care sheets specify?

What about humidity during molting? As a novice, the impression I get from all sides is that if you don't keep the humidity high, when your spider molts, the new skin will stick to the old skin, and it will bleed to death. Where is this scenario wrong?

 

[Code Monkey]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: LOL

Originally posted by Tranz
"40% relative humidity" - how does that relate to the 75-80% "medium" humidity that the care sheets specify?

Oh, it's about half what these care-sheets say. Keep in mind that to the best of my knowledge, the only sources for these figures are the short passages in the TKG and TOA:

Deep desert species tolerate relative humidities between forty and sixty percent, or even lower, very well. Rain or moist forest species do better in relative humidities of seventy-five to one hundred percent. Species living in intermediate conditions do best in intermediate relative humidities.
TKG: p126.

Humidity should be around 70 to 80 percent for tropical species, lower for tarantulas from drier areas (40 to 50 percent). For the tropical tarantulas keep the substrate moist at all times, but not so moist that there is condensation on the inside of the cage.
TOA: p21.

My "moist forest species" are always on slightly moist substrate, but I'm not wrapping the cage in plastic wrap or any of the other things some people do. I think that lack of ventilation is far more of a threat than the humidity issue. Nowadays, Stan Shultz and Dr. Breene take the even more radical positions that you can adapt most species to "arid" conditions that eliminate any threat of complication of mites and mold, and these two men are not some nut on a web board

What about humidity during molting? As a novice, the impression I get from all sides is that if you don't keep the humidity high, when your spider molts, the new skin will stick to the old skin, and it will bleed to death. Where is this scenario wrong?

The whole humidity-moulting link is as far as I am concerned 100% myth. When I was a young teen I kept Ts on things like sand with just a water dish. And although I've now advanced to keeping them on much friendlier substrates with appropriate moisture levels, I still don't worry about the humidity itself. I have never had a moulting incident.

Allow me to quote Mr. Shultz from the TKG again:

A popular hypothesis holds that tarantulas that are kept too dry will have trouble molting. This has yet to be unequivocally demonstrated, and is still open to much controversy...
Unless a tarantula is nearly dead from dehydration, it can marshal all the water required from internal sources to maintain the old exoskeleton in a softened condition. For the purposes of molting, the humidity of the surrounding cage is all but irrelevant. This contention is supported by the observation that, as they emerge during a molt, the inside of the exuvium fairly glistens with moisture. There must be some other reason for molting problems.
TKG: p151.

 

[Phillip]

for the most part...

The Monkey is for the most part right on the money. I personally have kept some 75 plus different species succesfully and I worry about my humidity about as much as he does. Now the one instance that more attention should be paid is with slings as they can't take dry conditions nearly as well as adults can. For the most part if the container is large enough to contain a water dish and you keep water in the dish then they will be fine. ( bottle caps work great for small containers ) I do lightly mist one of the sides each week but I mean light not drenched.
Phil