Spiderlings, and their care........

[Steve Nunn]

Originally posted by lam
I never said I didn't know about them. I did do research and I pretty much knew as much as I know now.

No, this is what you said:

It took me some deaths before I reallized my mistakes and changed my ways.

In that case what did the deaths show you that you already knew?

Taking care of slings are much harder, based on my personal experience, than taking care of a rosea.

Being that G.rosea are the easiest of all T's to care for I'd have to agree with you. It stands to reason, doesn't it?

Now be honest, do you actually know how to do something right the first time always after just by knowing it?

What? LOL.

BTW, read my post again more carefully. I don't think I expressed any warnings of lack of knowledge in the field.

Well, the more I read your post the more it says to me you didn't research well enough. Now if you read your post more carefully you'll see you stated that it took you some deaths before you realised your mistakes and changed your ways(my original quote of yours). I'll spell it out for you then, if it took you deaths to realise something, doesn't that mean you weren't aware of something(being that it took you deaths to realise)?

I stressed heavily on pattern of care and dedication. By "my mistake" that I put in the other post, I meant not enough focus and dedication.

OK. So you are saying you were slack and spiders died. It would then stand to reason that you shouldn't be keeping slings because of your lack of dedication, right? In which case you should have emphasized that it was your own fault your spiders died, becuase you failed to do what you knew. I'm failing to see what you were trying to educate people about lam.

Cutting up crix and worms takes time and they're not exactly fun to do. It is easy to let it slip your mind if you have a busy schedule. And that was what I was trying to say.

In which case you need to adjust your timetable if you are going to keep animals that may need care of some sort. Every keeper has to maintain their pets, what did you think, they were going to look after themselves?

Doing it the first couple time is easy. But trying to get into a pattern of doing it every other day or so takes focus. For me, it is not a given.

Just out of curiousity, what did that tell you?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Arachnopuppy]

Originally posted by Steve Nunn
No, this is what you said:



In that case what did the deaths show you that you already knew?



Being that G.rosea are the easiest of all T's to care for I'd have to agree with you. It stands to reason, doesn't it?



What? LOL.




Well, the more I read your post the more it says to me you didn't research well enough. Now if you read your post more carefully you'll see you stated that it took you some deaths before you realised your mistakes and changed your ways(my original quote of yours). I'll spell it out for you then, if it took you deaths to realise something, doesn't that mean you weren't aware of something(being that it took you deaths to realise)?



OK. So you are saying you were slack and spiders died. It would then stand to reason that you shouldn't be keeping slings because of your lack of dedication, right? In which case you should have emphasized that it was your own fault your spiders died, becuase you failed to do what you knew. I'm failing to see what you were trying to educate people about lam.



In which case you need to adjust your timetable if you are going to keep animals that may need care of some sort. Every keeper has to maintain their pets, what did you think, they were going to look after themselves?



Just out of curiousity, what did that tell you?

Thanks,
Steve

I admit that I wasn't ready to keep slings back then, which was 2 years ago. My mistake was that, although I knew that they needed more care than what I was giving them, I just got bored at all the things I had to do. I did adjust my timetable to meet their needs. What was I thinking? I don't know what I was thinking. By catching and twisting every little thing I said made me think this is some kind of game you are playing. I wasn't trying to educate anyone, if that's what you meant. I was simply trying to get people to think if they were ready to have slings or not, especially just after a short period of having nothing but rosea. I really don't understand why you kept asking me what my slings' deaths showed me. I thought I stated why in earlier posts. Again, you used my quote "it took me some deaths for me to changed my ways" and interpreted differently than what I meant for it to be and then continuingly used it against me. Really sounds like a mind game you're playing with me. And yes, IT WAS MY OWN FAULT!!! But was it ever the point? I was trying to get people to think about whether they should get slings or not. I said it and I'll say it again. IT WAS MY FAULT THAT MY SLINGS DIED. Did I state anywhere that it wasn't my fault???? Just keep playing your intellectual mind game all you want.

Just try to think of me as someone that screwed up and now trying to warn others of what COULD happen. And just think of yourself as someone that likes to take people's words, change the subject, make sure you sound intellectual enough, and use them against people. For what reason? I really don't know.

 

[Steve Nunn]

Originally posted by lam
Just try to think of me as someone that screwed up and now trying to warn others of what COULD happen. And just think of yourself as someone that likes to take people's words, change the subject, make sure you sound intellectual enough, and use them against people. For what reason? I really don't know.

My point to you (I hope you understand and don't read my words wrong) is: how can you advise anyone (which you did in your original post) that keeping slings are more difficult than adults, then go on to promote the purchasing of adults?

I don't agree with you (frankly, I felt your statements were so far from correct it just wasn't funny)and I stated why, you took offense, although in my initial post to you I asked that you don't(fair enough, your option).

This isn't a mind game lam, I disagree with you and find your opinion is close minded. That's my opinion, no mind game intended. I won't continue as I know you'll bite and that's certainly NOT what I'm intending, so how about I offer you an apology for offending you? I apologise for offending you lam.

I still think your opinion is wrong, I just want you to know I'm not trying to mess with your head

Have a lovely day,
Steve

 

[Arachnopuppy]

I wasn't promoting the massing up of adult tarantulas. The reason I think that a beginner such as myself back then, and probably myself now, should get an adult T of an easy-to-care-for species for the first additions to the collection is because they are harder to miss in a person's daily schedule than something as tiny as a sling. I am sure it may be natural for some to be totally interested in all the things they have to do to care for the little angels from the beginning, but for others it takes time. You can't ignore slings for a couple days like you can for certain adult tarantulas. This doesn't mean that you should, but it means that there is room for mistake at first before you move on. Remember that I am talking from a perspective of a somewhat newbie to the hobby, compared to the many veterines here that have been in the hobby for a hundred years. To some people, adults are less boring just because of their size. I know that many of you here will disagree with me on this, but you have to understand that not everyone is as a dedicated hobbyist as many of you here, at least not yet anyway.

I wasn't offended by your disagreement with my opinion. I was offended by your accusations and the picking on everything I said, interpreting them as though they hold the secrets to my mind. It probably wasn't your fault anyway. I have this thing with accusations. Like I said, I am very much a newbie, so my opinion may not be the best one. All you had to do was to say you disagreed and then stated why. I am not that much of an intellectual so I need more to go on with than metaphors or whatever else people tend to use. I was merely suggesting the taking of baby steps as one newbie to another.

Peace.

 

[Steve Nunn]

Originally posted by lam
I wasn't offended by your disagreement with my opinion. I was offended by your accusations and the picking on everything I said, interpreting them as though they hold the secrets to my mind.

Dude, I don' know where you get the idea I "accused" you of anything. I disagreed with you and stated why. As for picking on everything you said I could have done a thorough job and picked the hell out of your posts, but, what's the point of that. I touched on certain parts of one post and you jumped like it's some kind of conspiracy against you and I'm some sort of mind control freak. Slow down, take a pill and relax. Trust me, I have absoluely no interest in your mind, ok?

I merely thought your post had nothing to offer a "newbie" and tried to help by correcting what I felt was incorrect, no more then that. You can read more into it if you wish, but I'm telling you now, there's nothing deeper then that.

Apologies again for giving you paranoia, that wasn't my intention.

Steve

 

[Tranz]

Originally posted by Steve Nunn
OOOOHHHHH, Dr Breene (ATS) would chew your head off and eat it if he saw that remark

I however am not so inclined and believe that the spiders may 'remember' as such, I couldn't even guess to what extent though. The reason this subject isn't really approached is because at this stage of the game it's all hypothetical, there's absolutely no concrete evidence to support tarantula "mammal type thought" as it were.

Many would say it's just not possible and unbelieveable that these arthropods can harbour any sort of thought patterns similar to what mammals might do. Sure they have what we term a brain (the ganglion) but any suggestion that they may think in some way like we do (mammals) is going to be met with harsh criticism.

I'm of the opinion that the tarantulas may think more then we give them credit for, but how much more is anyones guess and it would be just that, a guess.

Still, you never know

Cheers,
Steve

But I did not use the word "thought". I used the words "emotion" and "behavior". Even primitive worms have been shown to yield Pavlovian responses.

For example, this link
(insert a "www." in front of it)
theengram.com/documents/Chapter09-PriorEvidenceForTheInvolvementOfRNAInTheMemoryProcess.pdf

contains the following abstract:

"The McConnell and Thompson experiments - planaria can be
conditioned
The history of the transfer experiments goes back to 1953, when two graduate students,
James V. McConnell and Robert Thompson, began to work with planarian
worms (McConnell, 1962).
Planarian worms are very low on the phylogenetic scale and are considered to be the
most primitive animals to exhibit bilateral symmetry. They have a number of ganglia
distributed throughout their bodies, but they also have a crude form of encephalisation.
3 McConnell and Thompson decided to see if they could demonstrate Pavlovian
conditioning in these animals.4
The experimental apparatus was a 12 inch semi-circular trough (in cross-section),
gouged out of plastic, and filled with pond water. Electrodes were inserted into the
trough at either end, and above the trough were two small light bulbs. The worms
were placed in the trough and proceeded to crawl along its length. At some point
during the journey, the experimenter turned on the light for three seconds, and followed
this by giving the worms a mild electric shock. The shock always elicited an
observable reaction from the worms, sometimes causing them to foreshorten their
bodies by arching their backs, leaving only the front and back parts of their bodies in
contact with the surface of the trough (contractions), and sometimes attempting to
turn around in the trough (turns).
McConnell and Thompson were interested to see if the worms would begin to give
the same type of responses to the onset of the light, prior to the delivery of the shock.
If either of these were observed, it was scored as a ‘response’.
In their initial experiment, McConnell and Thompson used two groups of animals.
One received the paired light and shock stimuli (group ‘E’), and the control group
received just the light alone (group ‘LC’).5 All animals were given 150 trials.
A combined contraction/turning score was obtained for the ‘E’ and the ‘LC’ groups
for the first 50 trials, and the last 50 trials, and the differences in the means were
obtained. The ‘E’ group increased their mean score from 13.8 to 21.6; the difference
of 7.8 responses being statistically significant at the p < 0.01 level. The ‘LC’ group,
The McConnell and Thompson experiments - planaria can be conditioned
on the other hand, gave an ‘innate’ response to the light, but may have habituated over
the course of the trials. Their mean score was 12.3 for the first 50 trials, and only 9.7
for the last 50 trials, a difference of -2.6 (not statistically significant).
These initial results seem to indicate that the ‘E’ group of worms had been conditioned
over the course of their 150 trials."

Perhaps they can now try the experiment with Oprah fans

 

[Arachnopuppy]

Originally posted by Steve Nunn
Dude, I don' know where you get the idea I "accused" you of anything. I disagreed with you and stated why. As for picking on everything you said I could have done a thorough job and picked the hell out of your posts, but, what's the point of that. I touched on certain parts of one post and you jumped like it's some kind of conspiracy against you and I'm some sort of mind control freak. Slow down, take a pill and relax. Trust me, I have absoluely no interest in your mind, ok?

I merely thought your post had nothing to offer a "newbie" and tried to help by correcting what I felt was incorrect, no more then that. You can read more into it if you wish, but I'm telling you now, there's nothing deeper then that.

Apologies again for giving you paranoia, that wasn't my intention.

Steve

Ok, if you say so. In that case, then its my apologies.

 

[Steve Nunn]

Originally posted by lam
Ok, if you say so. In that case, then its my apologies.

No need to apologise. I didn't take offense to a thing you said. People defend their opinions and sometimes the defense is just. Just for the record, I agree with you that adults require less attention regarding timeframe, good point. And just because I disagree with you, doesn't mean you aren't correct, many may feel the exact same as you do and they may have additional points of view to share. I didn't mean to attack you directly, I just didn't agree with you, that's all My apology was genuine, as you did feel offended, which wasn't my intention. I didn't mean to be demeaning.

An additional point is although I may have a little more experience then you, doesn't mean I'll be correct, I'm not so pig headed to presume I'm 100% right, I just feel I am, it's a point of view, no more then that. That's why sometimes even fierce discussion can bring positives, the trick is not to get personal (and in this regard, I'm damn sure I'm still a learner).

Cheers,
Steve

 

[Steve Nunn]

Originally posted by Tranz
But I did not use the word "thought". I used the words "emotion" and "behavior". Even primitive worms have been shown to yield Pavlovian responses.

Hi Tranz,
"Behaviour" relates to ecology, science with substance. "Emotion" is a form of thought, hence my usage of the term.

Thanks for the cut and paste, but I've seen numerous examples of such activities and can relate one directly to a species of spider, Portia fimbriata, a brilliant jumping spider from Qld, Australia that is astounding scientists the more they research it. It has shown astounding learning capabilities, far beyond what scientists previously thought possible of any arthropod. If you do a google search, you might find some articles, I'm not sure.

I agree with you that there's more to this then meets the eye, but I'm saying that many behavioural scientists will avoid "emotion" when discussing arthropods, it's among the touchiest of subjects. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen and they don't possess emotion, or learning capabilities for that matter.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[radjess331]

well i just got some chilean rose hair babies in and they are really easy to take care of....i have them in little air tight containers with vermiculite as the soil and mist it once every other week.....and i open the conainer about every 3 days to get fresh air in side.....i feed them 3 two week old crickets once a week...and they are growing fast and they arent having any probs shedding so i would say they are an easy species to raise.....

 

[LimaMikeSquared]

Oh yes get your self some slings to grow, its real fun. Try some Brachys first. I started with a curly hair who turned out to be a male. He matured at 8 months old and I had him from about 2cm - not a slow grower. I have a female now and she started at 1cm in May and is now about 3cm. My Smithi has grown fairly quickly too. My Blondie was 2cm a year and a half ago and is now 6". Grammostolas are very slow growers, and my B.Emilia seem to be too. I keep the slings in small deli tubs with moist substrate, keeping the Grammys slightly dryer by misting one side of the tub only. I keep them on top of my KKs so they keep at the right warmth from the air within the kk. I judge the humidity by the amount of condensation on the lid of the tub. Its really interesting to watch them change with each moult, and if you raise a male then you can send him out on loan and get a different species to try.

 

[AubZ]

I must say from personal experience that the ONLY problem with Slings is patience. I got a N Chromatus freebie that was 10 days old and smaller than my pinkie nail back in May. It has only grown to about a 0.5in. However, I do not use any heat source whatsoever cuz 1.) it does not get that cold by me (coldest night temp is about 18C in winter) and I like to simulate a summer/winter cycle. It has really shown on my King Sling as he burrowed himself up for 4 months or so and never ate. He did however managed to grow quite a bit though. I am now entering summer, so it will be interesting to see just how much they all grow now.

A bit off topic, but this is among many of the reason why I prefer slings. I will rather buy a sling over an adult, unless I get the adult at a really good price. And when I first started this hobby, I was dead against slings. A big thank you to my dealer who gave me the N Chromatus. That lil guy changed my whole view and I now just got 2 x B Smithi slings. Let the waiting begin.

 

[butch4skin]

I must say from personal experience that the ONLY problem with Slings is patience. I got a N Chromatus freebie that was 10 days old and smaller than my pinkie nail back in May. It has only grown to about a 0.5in. However, I do not use any heat source whatsoever cuz 1.) it does not get that cold by me (coldest night temp is about 18C in winter) and I like to simulate a summer/winter cycle. It has really shown on my King Sling as he burrowed himself up for 4 months or so and never ate. He did however managed to grow quite a bit though. I am now entering summer, so it will be interesting to see just how much they all grow now.

A bit off topic, but this is among many of the reason why I prefer slings. I will rather buy a sling over an adult, unless I get the adult at a really good price. And when I first started this hobby, I was dead against slings. A big thank you to my dealer who gave me the N Chromatus. That lil guy changed my whole view and I now just got 2 x B Smithi slings. Let the waiting begin.

Just goes to show how dependant upon environmental factors theraphosid growth rates are. I recieved an N. coloratovillosus at the same size back in april. I assume the two sp. have similar rates of growth. I kept her(yes, it's a female) in the low 80's and powerfed her up until a few months ago. She's now at about 6".

 

[AubZ]

At the same size meaning 10 days old (2nd instar) or 0.5 in?
Either way that is a big groth rate and a T on my wanted list.

 

[butch4skin]

Yeah, 2nd instar. Honestly, I would put it at more like 1/4". She's for sale now.

 

[Lorgakor]

I doubt sunnymarcie is still looking for advice 4 and a half years later lol!

 

[AubZ]

LMAO...Hehe... pretty funny, but I think that it is not always bad bringing up these threads, as it can help all the newbies and other members. I mean most ppl who joined since 2003 probably never even saw this thread.
I enjoyed Mr Nunn's Mind Games.

 

[AubZ]

@ Butch, that is a seriously unbelievable growth rate. WOW!

 

[butch4skin]

@ Butch, that is a seriously unbelievable growth rate. WOW!

I wouldn't believe it myself except I saw it happen. She easily outgrew my many pokies, Lasiodoras, and blondis as well, and the blondis were a fair bit larger, like 3" when she was about 1/2".

 

[AubZ]

How often and how much did you feed her?