Colder Climate Care

speedreader

Arachnobaron
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May 14, 2005
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I will be moving to upstate New York with my Ts. What kind of precautions should I take for winter? Any other care tips?
 

jen650s

Arachnobaron
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How many do you have and what type of area and enclosures will they be kept in?
 

GailC

Arachnoprince
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keep them in a small room and use a electric heater set on low.
 

speedreader

Arachnobaron
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My enclosures:
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=96179

I will bring 3 spiderlings and p.metallica juvie over. Spiderlings are in tupperware. Pokie is in kritter keeper. I guess they will be on a shelf or beneath a new tv stand (w/o the tv).

I think I will keep my larger species with my folks until I get the hang of colder climate care.
 

GailC

Arachnoprince
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As long as it is warm enought that you are comfortable then the T's will be fine. Try to find a place that is cheap and easy to heat.
 

Flagg

Arachnosquire
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My post was meant as a joke, really.
In northern states in the winter, you have a thermostat and the heat is on pretty much all winter. Its not like AC where you can do without it. When it's below freezing for weeks at a time, you don't have the option of NOT having the heat on. If the heat is off and the house gets enough below freezing for long enough, you'll have a lot more problems like broken water pipes.

Set the thermostat to 68 or so and the tarantulas will be fine.
 
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speedreader

Arachnobaron
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Oh that sounds neat. So basically I don't need heating pads, no nothing as long as thermostat is working?

Anyway, I have already paid for the place I will be living in, so not much choice there. It's 5 min to campus, so yeah.
 

spid142

Arachnobaron
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I live in Newburgh NY in the hudson valley, and in winter I use an oil heater for the T room, set on medium. Mine do fine, even tho the room temp can drop a little cold some nites. I haven't lost any to cold. No way I can afford to have it warm throughout the trailer here, I only use the thermostat to barely keep the pipes from freezing, and otherwise I only have heat in the T room and wherever I am.
 

speedreader

Arachnobaron
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I am told my apartments can have spontaneously lower temp due to screwed up thermostat. Any emergency measures for Ts if that happens?
 

Stylopidae

Arachnoking
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I live in Iowa and I keep my apartment around 60* in winter. It's enough to give the spiders a cooling period (for breeding purposes) since my apartment is around 75*-80* consistantly in the summer. Don't worry about them unless you anticipate waking up with frost on your sheets.
 

xBurntBytheSunx

Arachnoprince
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my room gets cold and i just keep a little space heater in here and that seems to do the trick.

i've mentioned this before, but i lost power due to an icestorm in my room and it was near freezing in here for 5 days or so. i had about 10 T's at the time and didn't lose a single one, including some warm climate t's. they're tougher than you think. temps don't really need to be spot on ime. my room mates keep the apt too damn cold about all the time and i really haven't had any problems due to it.
 

speedreader

Arachnobaron
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whoa that sounds great.
so basically colder conditions will be irrelevant to me most of the time...
 

xBurntBytheSunx

Arachnoprince
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i wouldn't say irrelevant, but i would say they aren't as fragile as i would have expected.
 

mischaaussems

Arachnosquire
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For these few spiders I wouldn't heat an entire room but use heatpads instead. Place them between enclosures and you can heat two enclosures with one mat.
 

pinkfoot

Arachnolord
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If the slings are in vials, then don't put them too close to the heat pad. Put several vials into a tupperware-type container, and heat the container. Easy.

Watch out for dehydration, though - there is less humidity about in winter, and heaters dry the ambient air further...:)
 

Stylopidae

Arachnoking
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Oh. So even tropical spiders can be ok if it's chilly for a bit?

You have to remember that a lot of these spiders live in deep burrows in the wild where it's signifficantly cooler than the surface.

Plus even in a lot of tropical periods, there's a 'winter' where the temps drop to the sixties and fifties.

This cooling period kind of cues them in on the season and many won't build eggsacks out of the proper season. A cooling period dramatically increases your chances of getting an eggsack.

In short, a temporary drop in temperatures isn't really all that harmful as long as the drop is within reason. If your apartment stays in the low sixties to high fifties, I wouldn't worry. If you're expecting anything less than 55* for an extended period of time, I'd be worried.
 
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