How did you get into keeping Tarantulas?

Rigor Mortis

Arachnobaron
Joined
Nov 7, 2018
Messages
498
Iā€™m a big Who fan, an even bigger fan of their bass guitarist John Entwistle. After he wrote ā€˜Boris The Spiderā€™ everyone kinda dubbed him the spider man and Joe Walsh from the Eagles gave him a B. hamorii (probably at that point an E. smithi? It was 1978/79) for his birthday and he called her Doris. He had her for twenty years! So when I got more into Johnā€™s solo music and found out he had a spider I decided ā€œwell if John Entwistle could have a spider and NOT kill it, Iā€™m sure I could do that tooā€ and then I started researching tarantulas as pets. Wasnā€™t sold on it but then I visited a local pet store and saw some in person and that did it for me. I put in an order the next day for an A. chalcodes and 10 spiders later here I am.
 

CommanderBacon

Arachnobaron
Joined
May 21, 2018
Messages
498
I got my first T in May 2016. I had been looking at getting one since the previous year, and had become obsessed with watching feeding videos by TarantulaAddict on YouTube because his voice was so chill and calm. A friend of mine had a C versicolor, and while I didn't want one of those, I was intrigued by how fluffy and cute it was. She also bred jumping spiders, and gave me some to care for in the year before I got a T. She said their care was somewhat similar to keeping a T and that if I wanted a tarantula, it wasn't really that much work.

I spoke to her and another spider keeper friend of hers I met at the same bug show, and asked them what they'd recommend for a beginner keeper. Then I walked off, spent $30, and came back with a nice 6x6x6" enclosure with a 2" freshly molted Grammostola porteri in it, which had been sold as G rosea by a crusty old guy who never remembers the correct binomials for his Ts, especially if they've changed in the last five years. I've come to avoid him in the years since unless I need a cheap enclosure.

Anyway, I enjoyed my first T so much that I got my second T, a subadult Avicularia avicularia, from LLL Reptiles (I didn't know!) at a reptile expo a few months later, and then was gifted a third a year later in August 2017 (a T albo freebie) after/while caring for three more P regius. Then I spider-sat for my friend for about 3 months while she was on set in Australia working on a film because she didn't want to leave her husband responsible for her slings over the winter. I enjoyed caring for all of them a lot.

Acquisition picked up a bit more after that. I started 2019 with 12 tarantulas, and now I have 89 arachnids. I tend to like dwarf terrestrials/fossorials, specifically high altitude species from the Andes, but I also like true spiders. I haven't had a jumper in about a year, though, and I miss it. They're always so much fun to keep!
 

Tarantulafeets

Arachnobaron
Joined
Nov 8, 2020
Messages
336
I started keeping ts at the begining of this year, and my dad's friend (who also keeps ts) had two juvie lps so he gave one to us. I was absolutly fascinated, and quickly saw how cool they are. But the thing with having 1 first t is that you have a lot of substrate and feeders for only 1 t. Sooo... we got more!
 

USNGunner

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jul 30, 2020
Messages
148
Iā€™m a big Who fan, an even bigger fan of their bass guitarist John Entwistle. After he wrote ā€˜Boris The Spiderā€™ everyone kinda dubbed him the spider man and Joe Walsh from the Eagles gave him a B. hamorii (probably at that point an E. smithi? It was 1978/79) for his birthday and he called her Doris. He had her for twenty years! So when I got more into Johnā€™s solo music and found out he had a spider I decided ā€œwell if John Entwistle could have a spider and NOT kill it, Iā€™m sure I could do that tooā€ and then I started researching tarantulas as pets. Wasnā€™t sold on it but then I visited a local pet store and saw some in person and that did it for me. I put in an order the next day for an A. chalcodes and 10 spiders later here I am.
Love that tune. I hadn't heard that story. It just makes it more awesome at this point! :cool:

My Grandson. He bugged his mother for ever wanting a tarantula and one day she caved. :embarrassed: I still can't believe it. The only thing she hates more than frogs are spiders.

So, the research fell to Grandpa. The boy already had it in his head that he wanted a B. hamorii, they were docile, lived 20 years and loved to be handled. :rolleyes: When I started researching it I quickly figured out that was not necessarily the case and managed to temper his enthusiasm for the handling down quite a bit. He has gotten past that one.

Anyway, she bought it for him the day before they left on a 2 week vacation to kali. B Hamorii sling, maybe an inch DLS. We got it home, into it's new quarters and all was well. LOL. Right up to the point that the girl coming over to take care of the dogs, cat, and ferret was going to cancel if there was a big hairy spider in the house. So I had spood sitting duty.

I watched the little buggar and worried my butt off that something would happen, looking up details constantly to make sure it was ok. Holy crap did I learn a lot. And got interested. And found Fear Not. and...................................

I now have six. A Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens , Caribena versicolor, 2 Hapalapous sp. Columbia (lg), a Cyriocosmus Leetz, and a Cyriocosmus Perezmilesi. My grandson is madder than a hornet as one T is his mother's hard deck. But, his Hamorii is the biggest of the herd, so there's that. I really like the brightly colored and dwarf species. I think this is a pretty good selection actually. All are doing well, that C. Leetzi is one tiny sling though. She's molted 3 maybe 4 times and is still in a 1 oz deli cup. With room. LOL.

I also have a Blatta lateralis colony running much to my wife's chagrin, but it was absolutely the right answer to the feeder dilemma.

Short story long, that's my super power. :rofl:
 

Ic4ru577

Arachnoknight
Joined
Jul 24, 2020
Messages
239
Lockdown made me grounded at home. Needed something to keep me sane. Bought a klaasi which turned to be a rock and now I dipped into the deep end of the pool
 

Uial

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jun 11, 2018
Messages
67
Same story as many people here. I was scared of spiders, it was disruptive and unhealthy. Forced myself to watch them to get over it. Found Tarantula channels on YouTube. There are still some species of spider I find creepy, but I can put them in a glass and set them outside now.

Got a few T's. I like that the maintenance is low, because I often come from work exhausted and can't be bothered, but its still a pet, so I'm not so lonely. I like that you can watch them like fish and they are hands-off pets (I know some people handle theirs, but why, just why? Mine try to kill me when I change the water dish, I don't want that murder machine anywhere near my vulnerable skin, thank you)

I love the slow, big NW's that are always visible. I have a L. parahybana and an A. geniculata and they are really, really defensive compared to the others, that's about as much excitement as I can take, no pokies for me. But I love them all dearly, even though their opinion on me is "mƤh" at best and "killmode engaged" at worst^^
 

tarymst

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 19, 2020
Messages
3
my SO has three grammastola tarantula's, and i've been scared of spiders all my life and now i'm working on overcoming my fear. one of the things that helped him was learning about them and then owning them. i'm working on going down that same road. i have my eyes on a mexican red knee as my first t. i'm excited as much as i am nervous. :)
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2020
Messages
14
I got my first tarantula, a common pinktoe, about 10 months ago. He wouldn't eat for an unknown reason and died. My second tarantula, the one I have now, is eating just fine and built a little mound in front of her hide to be used as a trap. She is doing better than ever. The soil may look moist, but I checked it. It's actually a bit dry.
 

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Rigor Mortis

Arachnobaron
Joined
Nov 7, 2018
Messages
498
Just remembered that I could have started T keeping way earlier if I'd had my way. As a kid I had a bearded dragon and we always went to a locally owned pet store to get crickets for her. They sold fish, birds, small mammals, reptiles, you name it. And they were actually decently cared for too. This one time they had an A. avicularia for sale and I asked my mom if we could get "the spider with the pink shoes" and she said no way are you going to get a pet spider. If only she had said yes, who knows what I'd have by now!
 

KeGathings17

Arachnosquire
Joined
Feb 26, 2020
Messages
74
Iā€™m a big Who fan, an even bigger fan of their bass guitarist John Entwistle. After he wrote ā€˜Boris The Spiderā€™ everyone kinda dubbed him the spider man and Joe Walsh from the Eagles gave him a B. hamorii (probably at that point an E. smithi? It was 1978/79) for his birthday and he called her Doris. He had her for twenty years! So when I got more into Johnā€™s solo music and found out he had a spider I decided ā€œwell if John Entwistle could have a spider and NOT kill it, Iā€™m sure I could do that tooā€ and then I started researching tarantulas as pets. Wasnā€™t sold on it but then I visited a local pet store and saw some in person and that did it for me. I put in an order the next day for an A. chalcodes and 10 spiders later here I am.
This is awesome!!

My story is a bit mundane, always loved creepy crawlies as a kid, and always wanted a snake or tarantula ever since I could remember, mom wasn't into it though until I turned about 15 or 16 and she got me my G. Porteri, and I've had her for about 6 years, got a snake a couple years ago and it's all been downhill from there! I'm at 9 T's now and I'm obsessed.
 

bobbibink

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
60
Back in 1997 a coworker/friend asked me if I would like to have a tarantula that a friend gave him...... and that was that. šŸ˜. She was a G. rosea named Maldoon.
 

Rozwyrazowana

Arachnopeon
Joined
Apr 16, 2020
Messages
35
I've always been interested in exotic pets. When I was 16 I wanted a T, my mom said no, but I knew if I bring one home she won't throw it out. But somehow I've never gone through with the plan. One of the problems was that Ts were dirt cheap back then, and if I remember correctly, 5 slings were minimal order. They cost 1 PLN (0,3USD) for 5 T. albo slings. I didn't see a point in owning 5 Ts, so I let it go. Sometime later I wanted a snake but I was moving out for college so this idea died too.

Years later I met my husband, on one of our early days we visited a wild animals exhibition, Ts and snakes mostly. I told him that I want to have a snake one day, he told me he'd rather have a T.

Some more years have passed. My younger son loves animals, his job is being a zoo owner, but at the same time, he's afraid of all animals. A year ago he asked me if we can have a tarantula. I did some research, bought what was supposed to be a young adult female T. albo that quickly turned out to be a MM. All in all, now I have 8 Ts: already mentioned MM T albo, juvie female B. hamorii, and a bunch of unsexed freebies: 2x P. cambridgei, 2x N. incei, N. chromatus, C. elegans.
 

Mardorang

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 31, 2020
Messages
2
I found my A. hentzi on my kitchen counter one morning. It was the biggest spider I had ever seen up until that point. I don't know how she got there because she's barely moved ever since. After 13 months she molted so I could verify female.
 

Arachnid Addicted

Arachnoprince
Joined
Apr 16, 2019
Messages
1,546
I've always liked arachnids and before keeping tarantulas I had a few Lycosidae, Ctenidae (Phoneutria, included), Theridiidae (Latrodectus, included), and other true spiders besides a couple of scorpions.

A friend of my father had a pet store at the time, noticed that I was into arachnids and gave me my first T, as a gift.

She was a L. klugi that lived 19yrs. My second one was a P. murinus, which I bought from a friend and the rest is history, lol.
 

Eddie789

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 23, 2011
Messages
3
Have loved all animals as a kid, had many dogs, cats, and reptiles! Fast forward to about nine years ago I stumbled upon RobCā€™s YouTube videos. I was not very fond of arachnids until I started researching them. Happened to find this forum and research what species I wanted...

Well I Ended up with five slings from an online seller. G pulchripes x2, N. Chromatus, P muranus, G rosea. Had them for many years! I recently moved and had to sell most of them. Kept one and gave one to my brother. Unfortunately I havenā€™t gotten anything since the move. Iā€™m way overdue for a T!!!
 
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