Hi! My name is Dana and I am new here. Please forgive me if this is the wrong area to post this, I wanted to share an experience but I could not find the proper place to put it. Maybe someone can tell me in the future how to search for certain topics to post.
Warning: PAINFUL BITE STORY that i thought might belong here for those that haven't had this experience. And sorry it's kind of long.
So I had 3 spiders for over a year. A B. Boehmei (Mexican Fire Leg) named Shadow. (The poor thing spent way too much time in a pet shop under a bright light and she's scared of everything but crickets. I tried to put a small blue hornworm in there that was perfect size for her to eat, and when I came home from work she was clung to the side of the cage as far from it as she could get. Poor baby is scared of her own shadow. Thus the name... Shadow). I also have a jumping spider (Phiddipus Texanus) named Daisuki, and a curly Hair (Tliltocatl Albopilosus) named Zwei (my kid named him after his favorite sword in a game. Idk he's a kid, I like it. Lol)
Anyway, I studied for about 6 months on several different spiders including Avic Avic, which I still want. But i went to a pet store about an hour from me that I thoroughly enjoy speaking to the owner, he's very knowledgeable about his animals and he usually loves them very much, and takes great care of his own spiders, and he had a Cobalt Blue (Cyriopagopus lividus). The only thing is this particular spider had been there for a while and they only had her (she's supposed to be a confirmed female) in a cage with only an inch and a half or less of soil and she was severely stressed. She had a water Bowl made out of an old cat plastic wet food container, and there were bugs in it. There were about six crickets crawling all over her in her cage where they had been just dropping them in and not removing them when she didn't eat. She had no room to burrow and I immediately decided I wanted to bring her home. I had never had an old world before , I had considered it but was trying to do more research . She was so stressed out she was in the corner webbed up with her feet tucked under her body and scared to death. So fast forward I bring the spider home I put her in a cage with 7 in of substrate, I had been reading up on the cobalt blue for about 3 months because I was considering one, but I didn't know if I wanted to go with such a difficult species to care for quite yet, but I got her out of those conditions. I took a lot of advice from a lot of pages like this one, and I read a lot, and did everything I could to make her a perfect little home. It has cork bark and springtails to keep mold down that might come from the moisture in her cage, a bunch of sphagnum moss, she gets fed 2 to 3 crickets a week and she eats perfectly,(only when I can see her abdomen does she get that much, if I can't see her she gets one a week and it's taken out after 24 hours of it isn't eaten. Her abdomen was small and she drinks a lot of water so I've been giving her what she will eat) but she's been acting strange lately. I had made her a burrow and she went into it and webbed it up but lately she has come out of it and decided to go behind the cork bark in the corner and web herself there and she kind of stays tucked into there where I kept a heating pad against that wall. I don't know if she was cold, and decided to stay there for a bit, i keep a very small pad on one side so she can escape the heat when needed) so anyway one day I looked into the cage and she was nowhere to be found. I looked everywhere, and I use gloves anytime I pick anything up out of her cage to clean just in case. But since I didn't see her, I assumed (yes definitely made an ass out of me) she was in her burrow and I didn't put any gloves on. Huge mistake. When I lifted the lid she was curled up in the corner where she knows I lift it from and she shot out of the cage as fast as she could. All I was concerned with was for one, not having a venomous spider running loose in my house and two, her falling and dropping from the height she's at and bursting her abdomen. I didn't have time to put gloves on so I just scooped her up as quick as I could and dropped her in the cage. Well she barely tagged my thumb because she was scared. I don't blame her it's not her fault, it's mine for not being prepared. But she just barely got me with one Fang, and it didn't even bleed. I immediately washed it with alcohol and soap and water, and it got really itchy but other than that I was fine. This happened on the 11th, and that has gone from an itch, to a half paralyzed hand for about 3 hours, and now has spread through the nerves in my back all the way down to my leg on the left side, extreme muscle spasms, my legs are swollen twice their original size, and I'm out of work for 2 days because I can't stand up.
And please don't make fun of me, I think it's kind of funny now because yes I should have had gloves on even if I didn't see her and it was my fault, but this hurts y'all. I can't walk or bend over at all. And this is all from one tiny Nick from one Fang. She didn't even get me with both, and it was super fast. I had her in her cage within 3 seconds.
So take it from me for beginners or anyone that hasn't had a bad experience that it can be really bad. These spiders mean business and even if you were only trying to check a water bowl and don't see your spider, wear protective gear always. Most people that I've heard get bitten by the species that it's mild pain or some muscle cramps but that's it. Apparently I'm extremely sensitive to it because I can hardly walk.
I still love my beautiful baby and she's still in better conditions than she was before. However, where she was in her burrow before, now she seems huddled next to a very small heat pad on a thermostat (and I'm looking into getting a thermostat gun that you just aim at the cage to make sure she's warm enough) I'm going to plug in the heater for a little while the cage is very moist and wet on the bottom and dry on top. Maybe she just wants a little warmth? Anyway here's some pictures of my beautiful baby, and buyers beware. You can be allergic maybe or very sensitive to certain types of venom, and there isn't any anti venom at the local hospitals for these king of spiders, so you just have to wait it out and it's something to be taken very seriously. I learned the hard way LOL here's some pictures of my baby. I've decided to name her finally. Her name is Itami, which is Japanese for pain. Lol. She's such a beautiful creature though.
Warning: PAINFUL BITE STORY that i thought might belong here for those that haven't had this experience. And sorry it's kind of long.
So I had 3 spiders for over a year. A B. Boehmei (Mexican Fire Leg) named Shadow. (The poor thing spent way too much time in a pet shop under a bright light and she's scared of everything but crickets. I tried to put a small blue hornworm in there that was perfect size for her to eat, and when I came home from work she was clung to the side of the cage as far from it as she could get. Poor baby is scared of her own shadow. Thus the name... Shadow). I also have a jumping spider (Phiddipus Texanus) named Daisuki, and a curly Hair (Tliltocatl Albopilosus) named Zwei (my kid named him after his favorite sword in a game. Idk he's a kid, I like it. Lol)
Anyway, I studied for about 6 months on several different spiders including Avic Avic, which I still want. But i went to a pet store about an hour from me that I thoroughly enjoy speaking to the owner, he's very knowledgeable about his animals and he usually loves them very much, and takes great care of his own spiders, and he had a Cobalt Blue (Cyriopagopus lividus). The only thing is this particular spider had been there for a while and they only had her (she's supposed to be a confirmed female) in a cage with only an inch and a half or less of soil and she was severely stressed. She had a water Bowl made out of an old cat plastic wet food container, and there were bugs in it. There were about six crickets crawling all over her in her cage where they had been just dropping them in and not removing them when she didn't eat. She had no room to burrow and I immediately decided I wanted to bring her home. I had never had an old world before , I had considered it but was trying to do more research . She was so stressed out she was in the corner webbed up with her feet tucked under her body and scared to death. So fast forward I bring the spider home I put her in a cage with 7 in of substrate, I had been reading up on the cobalt blue for about 3 months because I was considering one, but I didn't know if I wanted to go with such a difficult species to care for quite yet, but I got her out of those conditions. I took a lot of advice from a lot of pages like this one, and I read a lot, and did everything I could to make her a perfect little home. It has cork bark and springtails to keep mold down that might come from the moisture in her cage, a bunch of sphagnum moss, she gets fed 2 to 3 crickets a week and she eats perfectly,(only when I can see her abdomen does she get that much, if I can't see her she gets one a week and it's taken out after 24 hours of it isn't eaten. Her abdomen was small and she drinks a lot of water so I've been giving her what she will eat) but she's been acting strange lately. I had made her a burrow and she went into it and webbed it up but lately she has come out of it and decided to go behind the cork bark in the corner and web herself there and she kind of stays tucked into there where I kept a heating pad against that wall. I don't know if she was cold, and decided to stay there for a bit, i keep a very small pad on one side so she can escape the heat when needed) so anyway one day I looked into the cage and she was nowhere to be found. I looked everywhere, and I use gloves anytime I pick anything up out of her cage to clean just in case. But since I didn't see her, I assumed (yes definitely made an ass out of me) she was in her burrow and I didn't put any gloves on. Huge mistake. When I lifted the lid she was curled up in the corner where she knows I lift it from and she shot out of the cage as fast as she could. All I was concerned with was for one, not having a venomous spider running loose in my house and two, her falling and dropping from the height she's at and bursting her abdomen. I didn't have time to put gloves on so I just scooped her up as quick as I could and dropped her in the cage. Well she barely tagged my thumb because she was scared. I don't blame her it's not her fault, it's mine for not being prepared. But she just barely got me with one Fang, and it didn't even bleed. I immediately washed it with alcohol and soap and water, and it got really itchy but other than that I was fine. This happened on the 11th, and that has gone from an itch, to a half paralyzed hand for about 3 hours, and now has spread through the nerves in my back all the way down to my leg on the left side, extreme muscle spasms, my legs are swollen twice their original size, and I'm out of work for 2 days because I can't stand up.
And please don't make fun of me, I think it's kind of funny now because yes I should have had gloves on even if I didn't see her and it was my fault, but this hurts y'all. I can't walk or bend over at all. And this is all from one tiny Nick from one Fang. She didn't even get me with both, and it was super fast. I had her in her cage within 3 seconds.
So take it from me for beginners or anyone that hasn't had a bad experience that it can be really bad. These spiders mean business and even if you were only trying to check a water bowl and don't see your spider, wear protective gear always. Most people that I've heard get bitten by the species that it's mild pain or some muscle cramps but that's it. Apparently I'm extremely sensitive to it because I can hardly walk.
I still love my beautiful baby and she's still in better conditions than she was before. However, where she was in her burrow before, now she seems huddled next to a very small heat pad on a thermostat (and I'm looking into getting a thermostat gun that you just aim at the cage to make sure she's warm enough) I'm going to plug in the heater for a little while the cage is very moist and wet on the bottom and dry on top. Maybe she just wants a little warmth? Anyway here's some pictures of my beautiful baby, and buyers beware. You can be allergic maybe or very sensitive to certain types of venom, and there isn't any anti venom at the local hospitals for these king of spiders, so you just have to wait it out and it's something to be taken very seriously. I learned the hard way LOL here's some pictures of my baby. I've decided to name her finally. Her name is Itami, which is Japanese for pain. Lol. She's such a beautiful creature though.
