How can an enclosure be to big?

RepugnantOoze

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i mean besides trying to find where your tiny sling is and having more space on you shelves. what is the issue with having a to large enclosure?
 

Andrea82

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i mean besides trying to find where your tiny sling is and having more space on you shelves. what is the issue with having a to large enclosure?
By putting a spider in a too large enclosure, you're reducing the chance that it finds the feeder insect, which is not a good thing, especially with slings. T's also need a closed space to feel comfortable, so in a too big enclosure, it will prrobably stay in its hide more or burrow a lot, which can make keeping a Theraphosid less fun for some people.
 

EulersK

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The biggest one to me is that big enclosures were designed for big animals. Because of this, small cracks and gaps weren't seen as an issue to the manufacturers. You're simply asking for an escape with a setup that's too large.
 

Jeff23

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i mean besides trying to find where your tiny sling is and having more space on you shelves. what is the issue with having a to large enclosure?
Quite a few of my sling enclosures are over-sized. I do this to improve moisture control (since I travel on my job). The biggest problem is trying to get food to your small slings. To overcome this issue I feed often and I scatter the pre-kill cricket pieces in multiple places in the enclosure. Clean-up is more work as well. It works because the abdomens of my T's are nice and fat.

I would only recommend it for slings if you don't mind the extra work and you are away sometimes for a few days.

EDIT* Some individuals also oversize OW tarantulas to avoid re-housing so often. There are also tarantulas that get stressed easily so placement in an over-sized enclosure can be an advantage (Megaphobema robustum).
 
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nicodimus22

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Too much ground to cover to easily find food, especially for slings and juveniles. They are ambush predators. They don't wander to hunt...the food usually comes to them.
 

RepugnantOoze

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how is there too much ground? as opposed to the earth?

If tarantulas can go months without eating I am sure they can make it to the other side of there enclosure before they starve.

Also, I mostly just drop food next to there hides and they snatch it up. Never had a problem. Especially now that I am using dubias.
 

Jeff23

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how is there too much ground? as opposed to the earth?

If tarantulas can go months without eating I am sure they can make it to the other side of there enclosure before they starve.

Also, I mostly just drop food next to there hides and they snatch it up. Never had a problem. Especially now that I am using dubias.
It isn't that the tarantula will starve. The problem is slings are most vulnerable to dying. You want your sling to at least reach juvenile stage as soon as possible. Over-sizing the enclosure will add delays in them finding food. My slings do wander around the full enclosure that is over-sized, but they don't do it non-stop. Sometimes a single cricket will be missed and then no longer desirable by the tarantula. That is why I scatter multiple pieces of pre-kill.
 

EulersK

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couldn't you just crush the feeders heads?

@EulersK seems like an easy thing to avoid.
It's very easy to avoid.
Do a quick search on the boards for "escaped tarantula" and see how often it's due to a large enclosure.

If tarantulas can go months without eating I am sure they can make it to the other side of there enclosure before they starve.
See @nicodimus22's post right above yours.

You'll find that many of us house growing spiders in large enclosures as to avoid frequent rehousings. That's perfectly fine. The issue comes when a keeper wants to put a 1" sling into their "forever home" like we've been seeing a lot of lately. There are many issues, all of which can be dismissed as easy to avoid.
  • Large falls resulting in an injury
  • High chance of escape
  • Spider having trouble finding food/water
  • Issues maintaining humidity
  • Issues finding the spider
  • Removing uneaten prey or even noticing it was uneaten
I could go on, but you get the point. All of these are easy to avoid, but why create a laundry list of issues for yourself when proper housing would resolve all of them immediately?
 

Lucashank

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how is there too much ground? as opposed to the earth?

If tarantulas can go months without eating I am sure they can make it to the other side of there enclosure before they starve.

Also, I mostly just drop food next to there hides and they snatch it up. Never had a problem. Especially now that I am using dubias.
Although I do not disagree with having a larger enclosure, I have always found that argument to be quite flawed.
If one wants to treat their tarantula as if it is living in the wild, why take any measures at all to ensure it is safe and comfortable?
It is just in consideration of your tarantula. There is no law on enclosure size, some people just prefer to make it easier for the tarantula.
 

cold blood

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Too big is really IMO, a sling thing.

Adults and even many juvies will do just fine in oversize enclosures.

Slings however are a differrent story. A sling in an over size enclosure is inclined to hide a ton more, which leads to much less agressive feeding response....if the sling is hiding all the time it wont be eating as much and wont be able to be monitored....often this leads to spectacularly slow growth....something most sling owners dont want.

i see this behavior as closer to a wild slings actions....why dont we want to mimic wild? Because survival rates are abysmal in the wild...with proper set up and care, captive ts have spectacular survival and growth rates comparatively.

Condiment cups and deli cups are the best place for slings IME.
 

RepugnantOoze

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@cold blood I think I have observed what you are referencing in my tiny little A. Chalcodes sling. He's finally in pre molt and its really been way to long. I will probably rehouse him afterwards.

Also, I am not going to be using a to large enclosure because I don't have much space and I mostly agree with everyones points. I was only curious as to what folks would say on the subject and I was hoping to stir up the conversation a bit by being slightly contrary. Thanks for all the informative responses guys!
 

Jeff23

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It's very easy to avoid.
Do a quick search on the boards for "escaped tarantula" and see how often it's due to a large enclosure.



See @nicodimus22's post right above yours.

You'll find that many of us house growing spiders in large enclosures as to avoid frequent rehousings. That's perfectly fine. The issue comes when a keeper wants to put a 1" sling into their "forever home" like we've been seeing a lot of lately. There are many issues, all of which can be dismissed as easy to avoid.
  • Large falls resulting in an injury
  • High chance of escape
  • Spider having trouble finding food/water
  • Issues maintaining humidity
  • Issues finding the spider
  • Removing uneaten prey or even noticing it was uneaten
I could go on, but you get the point. All of these are easy to avoid, but why create a laundry list of issues for yourself when proper housing would resolve all of them immediately?
I've never had an escaped tarantula with my over-sized enclosures. It is more about the size of the ventilation holes to me.

I've never seen any humidity or moisture issues with any of my slings. Over-sizing the enclosure does help to slow down mold since you can leave a dry patch for placement of pre-kill prey.

Finding the tarantula is a problem for part of them. I always create pre-made burrows in my over-sized sling containers. I would wild guess that 80% of them accept the burrow I create and thus tracking the tarantula is a piece of cake. But that other 20% (and I think this is impacted by species preferences) goes into unknown state for multiple months which WILL test your patience. With regard to species, I bought some Cyriocosmus leetzi slings and 100% of them did their own custom burrows. I have blindly fed them and kept substrate moist for several months now. I have recently found that that two of them are live and doing well. I haven't messed with the other ones after digging up two of them.
 

Dylan Bruce

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why dont we want to mimic wild? Because survival rates are abysmal in the wild...with proper set up and care, captive ts have spectacular survival and growth rates comparatively.
I agree with cold blood completely here, I often hear people say "it happens in the wild so it must be fine" when we keep animals in captivity they are in a completely different situation and we want them not to just survive but to thrive. Although I do keep my B. Smithi in a slightly oversized enclosure and it simply sticks to the side of it's enclosure closest to it's hide.
 

Dylan Bruce

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We would like to mimic their natural habitat, though, for them to be thrive. Eg. temperature/humidity/terrain
Yeah but there are also things in their natural habitat that aren't great for them which we try our best to avoid. Height for example, in the wild terrestrial tarantulas probably have a few opportunities to climb and possibly fall and hurt themselfs but when keeping them in captivity we try avoid this. Not saying that too much floor space is bad just that a smaller enclosure has it's advantages.
 

Thaneem

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If you keep a sling in an enclosure that is too large, it'll die. You won't be able to control the humidity as effectively as in a small enclosure, and it likely won't be able to find the food. And yeah, you can say they manage to do this and that in nature, but the reality is that, in captivity, the spider will likely die if it's 1/4 of an inch long and stuck in a 5 gallon aquarium. I'm not ashamed to say it happened to me when I first started keeping these animals, and it happened to someone else I know (that one pissed me off, because it was an animal I sold them and warned them to just keep it in the deli cup).
 
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