little 1/2" curly hair sling has been 1/2" for alot longer then i expected

[motorteipidpa]

i keep all my tarantulas at room temp and they dont seem to grow very fast but still eat well,molt well with no problems,etc.my little curly hair sling was 1/2" when i got it in may.Its still 1/2" right now!its been the same size for six months without one molt!it eats normally,( i cant get pinheads or fruit flies from around here so i feed it chopped cricket parts and guts)i never thought that a t that is so small can stay that small for so long and still be perfectly healthy and eat normally.etc.i wonder how long its gonna take this little guy to grow up!
Tom

 

[galeogirl]

Most Brachypelmas are pretty slow growers in my experience. I thought my first five B. albopilosum were never going to grow but now that they've hit the one inch mark, they're starting to molt on a more predictable basis and gain a little size with each molt.

 

[Code Monkey]

Most Brachypelma are slow, but curlies aren't in my experience. I've heard accounts of people who are able to raise females from sac to dropping their own sac in a bit over a year with high temps and feeding.

What exactly is RT for you? I keep all mine at RT as well - which in my case is about 74-76° F. I've got two, one I've had for a hair over 5 months and it's moulted 3X in that period, going from a 1/3" termite to 1.5" specimen. The other I've had the same length of time, but it started about 1.75", has moulted 2X, and is now about 3.5" in leg span.

I would almost wonder if it was id'd correctly with that long of an intermoult period for an alleged curly hair. Nothing to do but keep feeding it and find out I guess.

 

[motorteipidpa]

it has to be a curly hair.it is one from a batch of spiderlings produced by paul becker,he sells them on his site.i guess all my t's are being kept a little lower then room temp,around 72-74.this is how the temp has been,some specimens ive had over a year keeping them this way,and there all thriving.
Tom

 

[jwb121377]

Originally posted by motorteipidpa
it has to be a curly hair.it is one from a batch of spiderlings produced by paul becker,he sells them on his site.i guess all my t's are being kept a little lower then room temp,around 72-74.this is how the temp has been,some specimens ive had over a year keeping them this way,and there all thriving.
Tom

That would be room temp. Strang I have some .5" curly slings and they molted already within two months of ownership. I wouldn't worry though I'm sure a molt will come in time.

 

[Gail]

Originally posted by motorteipidpa
it has to be a curly hair.it is one from a batch of spiderlings produced by paul becker,he sells them on his site.i guess all my t's are being kept a little lower then room temp,around 72-74.this is how the temp has been,some specimens ive had over a year keeping them this way,and there all thriving.
Tom

I find that very strange indeed that yours is still so small as all curlies that I have had (from different sources) grow like weeds. I got 6 curlies on 8/14/02 - they were 1/4". All of them have molted 4 times for me since then and are now 1.25". I got a 3/4" curly on 4/16/02 which has molted 5 times since then and I just sexed it as a male last molt (not mature yet) and it is almost 4" already. Other curlies I have had similar growth rates. Are you absolutly sure that there wasn't an accidental mix up of species LOL?

Gail

 

[Code Monkey]

Originally posted by Gail
Are you absolutly sure that there wasn't an accidental mix up of species LOL?

Gail, this is what I still would be thinking because considering the source, Paul Becker, I don't know that it makes much difference whether he says he bred it himself or not. Paul seems to be a decent guy, but he doesn't seem to give a teeny crap about insignificant things like names or labelling. The saddest/funniest part is, he doesn't seem to give a teeny crap that this is constantly repeated about him. I mean, how much trouble would it be to fix his stock list for accurate names?

 

[Gail]

Originally posted by Code Monkey
Gail, this is what I still would be thinking because considering the source, Paul Becker, I don't know that it makes much difference whether he says he bred it himself or not. Paul seems to be a decent guy, but he doesn't seem to give a teeny crap about insignificant things like names or labelling. The saddest/funniest part is, he doesn't seem to give a teeny crap that this is constantly repeated about him. I mean, how much trouble would it be to fix his stock list for accurate names?

I must agree with you there - of those 6 curlies I mentioned, which I got from him - 1 of them is grey and black and looks nothing like the other 5, but is still growing well. I'm just waiting to see what it turns out to be

Gail

 

[phoenixxavierre]

Brachypelma albopilosum

Hey Tom,

Most curlyhairs do grow pretty fast, going from sling to juvenile adult within a year, but that is if you are keeping them in good conditions, as they would be in the wild, with plenty of food and water supply.
Currently I keep mine at 80-100% humidity (varying it from day to day) and at temps ranging from 70-90 degrees F (70 in the evening and 90 during the day or anywhere within this spectrum). If you are keeping the humidity level up and the temps above 70 then my guess is you got the runt! I have a runt also, and you can pretty much guess due to it's slow growth that it is a female, too. So, all in all, your little curlyhair should be fine as long as it has moisture, warmth and food. Talk to you later,

Paul Flinn
http://www.exopets.com