CARE AND HUSBANDRY OF THE CHILEAN ROSE TARANTULA

A WILD MALE IN ALGARROBO, CHILE

(Courtesy of Mark Thomas.)

COLOR FORMS

Gray Color Form LAST UPDATED ON 2014-February-03.

Pink Color Form

Red or Copper Color Form

CAVEATS
We don't know a lot about these tarantulas because so few people have ever actually gone to Chile to see how they live and brought back believable reports. (Great vacation idea, no? Take LOTS of pictures. You wouldn't need someone to carry your bags, would you?) What's presented here seems to fit with what is known about them, but a lot of it is conjecture, not fact. (Extrapolated from other tarantulas, or even other animals.) It should be taken as interim wisdom until confirmed or corrected by new data.

THE NAME OF THE ROSE

The scientific name for this tarantula is Grammostola rosea (Walckenaer, 1837). The "G" in "Grammostola" is always capitalized, the remainder of the word is all lower case. The second name, "rosea," is always all lower case. Both words are always either italicized or underlined if italics aren't possible. The part, "(Walckenaer, 1837)," means that this tarantula was originally described and named by a man, Baron Charles Athanase Walckenaer, in 1837. The parentheses indicate that it was originally known by a different scientific name. In fact, this species has a history of many different scientific names, causing much confusion. The name just previous to this was Phrixotrichus spatulata, for instance and was reported as such in The Tarantula Keeper's Guide, Second Edition. If you need to know the other names this tarantula has gone by you can consult Dr. Norman Platnick's World Spider Catalog, go to the Theraphosidae page, scroll down to the genus Grammostola, then scroll a little farther down to the entry mf rosea (Walckenaer, 1837)....................Bolivia, Chile, Argentina. While everybody has their own favorite variations for the common name, the official American Arachnological Society's Committee on Common Names name for them is "Chilean rose." Capital "Chilean," lower case "rose." The plural is "roses," not "rosies" although we have to admit that we sometimes use the latter. There is no such thing as a "rose hair" or "rosehair." Tarantulas have setae or bristles, not hair.

COLOR/MARKINGS
For the most part, immatures, males, and females are colored much alike but with the males being somewhat more vibrant. They have no distinctly different colors or patterns to help distinguish the sexes (sexual dimorphism). Nor do they have any distinctive color patterns (e.g., checkerboards, stripes, spots, zig-zags), being all more or less the same color all over. This species is a bit unusual among tarantulas in that it occurs naturally in at least three different color forms (sometimes also referred to as "colormorphs"). These all possess a more or less uniform dark gray undercoat. One color form is a more or less uniform, drab, dark gray (sometimes called "muddy" or "grubby") with at most only a sprinkling of lighter beige or pinkish hairs. Another possesses a uniformly dense, pretty, light pink outer coat. The last is a beautifully intense red or copper form. The adult males of this last form are spectacular! The hobby seems to have adopted the following acronyms for the three colors.

RCF: Red Color Form

PCF: Pink Color Form

NCF: Normal or Natural (gray) Color Form

It has been noted by several people that the pink and red color forms of the Chilean rose do not seem to blend in with the background soil, or function as camouflage. (See for instance the photo at the top of this page.) This is most curious, and this author awaits an explanation. We're not holding our breath, however. WILL THE REAL CHILEAN ROSE PLEASE STAND UP? For a while, enthusiasts thought each color form was a different species, even calling the copper colored form G. cala, the Chilean flame tarantula. However, on several occasions all of the several color forms were reported to arise from the same eggsac, strong evidence that these are all merely variants of the same species. But, this contention has not been written up in the literature (professional or enthusiast), the three individuals that this author was aware of making this assertion were unable to confirm the fact, and when this author made a public enquiry no one was able to step forward to confirm it either. Further, for about a decade there have been repeated rumors, especially from European enthusiasts, that someone had examined specimens in the pet industry and those in museums, and determined that what is now considered one species (Grammostola rosea) really was several different species. And, they were in the process of publishing a paper to that effect. But, in almost a decade no such paper has been forthcoming. Taxonomy doesn't operate on a basis of rumor and innuendo. It operates on rational arguments based on reproducible and verifiable facts. At this point, "There ain't enough meat in that hamburger! I ain't buying it!" And, until we see such a report, and it can be examined by knowledgeable arachnologists, and it is deemed believable, we're still left with the original contention: "There is only one species of several different color forms: Grammostola rosea."

SIZE
A medium sized tarantula. Mature females will have a body length of up to about 7.5 centimeters (three inches) and a leg span of about fifteen centimeters (six inches). While the male's body is smaller, the leg span remains the same. Because of the numbers being exported from Chile the average size of the individuals currently found in the market is usually smaller. It is presumed that, given time and proper care, these will reach respectable sizes.

NATIVE HABITAT
Roses come from the borders of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile to at least as far south as Santiago. The literature lists them as coming from Bolivia and Argentina, thus Dr. Platnick reports the same, but some of us have doubts about those records and would like to see confirmation.

The Atacama can be one of the harshest environments on the planet, but we're fairly certain that the areas where roses are found aren't quite so severe. They've been reported from semi-desert to scrub forest areas. At the top of this page is a photo of an RCF male taken very near Algarrobo, Chile, near the coast at about the longitude of Santiago. Apparently their principle sources of water over much of their range in nature are from the food they eat, and curiously enough, the more or less frequent fogs that drift in from the Pacific Ocean. In 2006, the BBC produced a TV series entitled Planet Earth, and Wikipedia has an extensive description of the series. The fifth episode, Deserts, contains a short segment on the Atacama desert and the fogs that moisten a narrow strip along its coast. While this episode does not mention tarantulas in general or Chilean roses specifically, it does offer an amazing insight into part of their habitat, and the photography is superb! Lastly on this topic, these authors have recently acquired photographs of the burrows of Chilean roses in the wild, and a short video of a Chilean rose being teased from its burrow. (Use the Back button on your browser to return here.) SOME NATIVE HABITAT PHOTOS

Open forest landscape.

(Courtesy of Mark Thomas.)

A rocky clearing in the forest. (Courtesy of Mark Thomas.)

A rose in a crack in the soil. (Courtesy of Mark Thomas.)

LIFE SPAN
It is very difficult for us to make anything more than a wild guess at maximum life spans. Chilean roses have only been imported in any numbers since the early 1990s following the fall of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte in March 1990. Since then they have been bred from time to time in captivity (but see Captive Breeding), but only very recently enough to warrant the term "commonly," and only a few of the resulting offspring have now had enough time to mature and die of old age. There is a severe lack of believable data. As an educated guess we can bracket the probable limits of their life spans at five to ten years for males, and twenty to twenty-five years for females. But their life spans probably vary as markedly as human life spans. Beyond that, all bets are off. Don't bet the grocery money!

TEMPERATURE AND LIGHT

Being desert animals, one might assume that these tarantulas require excessively high temperatures. Not so. They're extremely sturdy and resilient creatures and temperature is pretty much a non-issue with them. THE TARANTULA'S RULES OF

TEMPERATURE (EXPANDED) RULE #1 Any temperature YOU'RE comfortable at will suit your Chilean rose just fine. RULE #2 If YOU don't have to wear a wool sweater or a parka to stay warm, your Chilean rose isn't too cool. RULE #3 If YOU don't have to run naked because it's so hot, your Chilean rose isn't too warm. COROLLARY We're the fragile species, NOT the Chilean rose! DO NOT artificially raise the cage's temperature in the belief that Chilean roses need higher temperatures. There are two problems with supplying extra heat to a tarantula's cage.

Without a major engineering effort the heat is largely uncontrollable. If you happen to experience a particularly hot day and accidentally leave the cage heater on, you could easily come home to a strong smell of well cooked tarantula.

Artificial heat sources are strong desiccators. They dry the cage out extremely rapidly and to a very harsh degree. Roses are accustomed to living in a desert, but even they have limits to what they can tolerate.

THE TARANTULA'S FOURTH RULE OF TEMPERATURE (EXPANDED) A lower temperature is almost always preferable to an artificial heat source. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! For additional information regarding tarantulas and temperature see Temperature. NO SUNLIGHT! In fact, avoid all bright lights, but make sure that the tarantula can easily tell the difference between day and night. (See below.) CAPTIVE BREEDING While one sees many baby Chilean roses listed on the dealer's price list as "captive bred," the truth is that most such babies

HUMIDITY
Chilean rose tarantulas are desert creatures. They neither require nor appreciate an excessively high humidity. Do not keep them on damp substrate. Do not mist or spray them or any part of their cage. Do not intentionally maintain a damp spot of substrate under their water dish. DO always supply them with a water dish with clean water and the obligatory rock or slate chip. If your Chilean rose seems to spend an inordinate amount of time around or standing on its water dish, it's trying to tell you that the ambient humidity in your home is too dry even for it. This is particularly possible during winter in the temperate zones. In nature the Chilean rose would merely retreat to the bottom of its burrow, possibly even plugging the entrance to contain and protect what humidity is available. In a cage, most seldom have this option because enthusiasts most commonly do not allow for a burrow. (See the discussion of burrowing below. Use your browser's Back button to return here.)

are the result of wild caught females producing eggsacs once they are imported. Beginning in August or September, many dealers preferentially set aside the largest or prettiest freshly imported females in the hopes that they will produce such an eggsac, then manually or artificially incubate the eggsacs or eggs for future sale in the industry. Other dealers merely wait for announcements from enthusiasts who have recently purchased a female, and are now blessed with an eggsac. Even then, the babies produced from such eggsacs have never known the wild, and become quite accustomed to the hand of man very early in their development. And, they come from the factory automatically preprogrammed for the Northern Hemisphere calendar, avoiding the Hemisphere Shift entirely.

The solution is simple. Merely cover all the open parts of its cage to restrict or prevent ventilation, effectively precisely what the tarantula would do in Chile! For most cages, plastic food wrap is sufficient. Again, do not mist. Do not dampen the substrate. Be sure to supply an adequate water dish. However, if your Chilean rose seems agitated or anxious by moving around a lot, seemingly seeking something, one question to ask is, "Is the humidity too high in it's cage?" If so, find out why and fix the problem. Humidity, or more properly relative humidity, is vastly misunderstood by almost everybody due largely to the fact that it's taught completely incorrectly from grade school classes through all but the best college science courses. Even your favorite weather person on television gets it wrong! To learn the truth behind this topic and to find out a little about what relative humidity is really all about, read Relative Humidity.

SUBSTRATE
Substrate is the "bedding" used on the bottom of a tarantula's cage to ease the harshness of a smooth, hard cage floor. The topic of Substrate is discussed in detail at Substrate. When setting up a new cage for your Chilean rose, try to use the least damp substrate possible that will allow it to be properly tamped, and allow for ample ventilation so it dries out completely as soon as possible. The moisture should evaporate within a very few days. Roses are desert creatures, almost any moisture outside of the water dish isn't appreciated, and forcing your Chilean rose to live

on damp substrate is a lot like making you sleep in a wet bed. (See the discussion of hanging from the cage walls for more information.) Install a water dish with the obligatory rock or slate chip and add one Chilean rose tarantula. Don't try to feed it for several days or a week to give it a chance to get used to its new home before it's stampeded by a herd of wild crickets. "WHY DOES MY ROSE HANG FROM THE SIDE OF THE CAGE INSTEAD OF STANDING ON THE SUBSTRATE?" This a common query with terrestrial tarantulas, especially arid and desert varieties. See the discussion of hanging from the cage walls for more information.

THE MUCH DREADED "HEMISPHERE SHIFT"

Chilean roses pose a special problem. If they weren't so hardy they'd make lousy pets. The problem is this: They evolved in the southern hemisphere and their seasons are reversed to ours. (Here I'm assuming that you live in the northern hemisphere as the majority of tarantula keepers do.) And, they seem to have a particularly hard time adjusting to northern hemisphere timetables. This adjustment we call the "Hemisphere Shift." Think of it this way. In Chile they experience seasonal fluctuations in temperature, water/humidity availability, day length, and food availability. They use one, some or all of these to entrain their annual cycles, to synchronize their lives with the rest of Mother Nature. Their species evolved in this absolutely predictable waltz of variations. Each individual tarantula has grown up in these conditions. Then some scoundrel unceremoniously abducts them out their lair and ships them to the other side of the planet where all the seasons are "out of wack."

PAY ATTENTION HERE! As captive bred and raised Chilean roses become more common we are discovering that they DO NOT undergo a Hemisphere Shift. They apparently automagically synchronize their annual cycle with the local seasons as they grow and develop. When you acquire a Chilean rose tarantula one of your first questions should be, "Is it captive bred and raised, or wild caught?" Generally, the larger, presumably mature individuals are wild caught, while those half grown or smaller are cage raised. If your Chilean rose is captive bred and raised the section The Much Dreaded Hemisphere Shift may be of interest to you, but you should not follow the recommendations. Instead, treat the tarantula as any other arid or desert species whether baby, spiderling, or adult. (See Growing Your Own.) However, be advised that even captive bred and raised Chilean roses sometimes go on extended, unexplained fasts, and may miss expected molts for several seasons. This unpredictability is one of their more fascinating features.

And we keep the tarantulas in a completely alien, cavernous place called a "house" with weird lights, strange sounds or vibrations, and bizarre smells of all sorts. And, they're even touched and handled by these huge, clumsy, hot-to-the-touch, alien type, god things with bad breath and body odor. And, jumping and jittering all over the place. These god-things never seem to sit still! And the cages! Don't get your tarantulas started about the cages! What's next? Anal probes?

The heat is thermostatically controlled. There no longer is a hot season and a cold season. There goes any temperature clues to let them readjust to the new time table. And, when we get up we turn the lights on every morning at 6:30 or 7:00 AM and the house is well lit until we turn the lights off at 10:30 or 11:00 PM. And this never changes regardless of what season of the year it is. We've just removed day length as a clue. Worse yet, in nature they're preprogrammed to eat as much food as available in preparation for the coming sparse season. (And, there's ALWAYS a coming sparse season. Or worse!) During the sparse season they may go hungry for several months before food becomes plentiful again, another seasonal clue. Further, from time to time there may be a year of drought. In these years the "fat" season never arrives. Any creatures that are to survive must be able to endure a very long season of outright famine, a year or more in length. In captivity we give them all the food they'll eat and, out of instinct, they eat everything that we throw at them. We overfeed them thinking that they're starved and they don't stop eating until they're obese. Even then the food STILL keeps coming. There is no string of light meals followed by a few months of fasting. This destroys any food availability clues completely. Lastly, in Chile, even in the desert portions, there are dry seasons and damp seasons. It may not rain often, but from time to time fog banks roll in from the Pacific Ocean and generally moisten everything for a few hours to several days. And, this tends to happen seasonally. The rose's cage in your home is always kept bone dry as a means of vermin control, but you always keep a dish of water in the cage. Oops! There goes just about the last clue. The result is that this species more than almost any other becomes quite confused about what season of the year it is. Because we've removed all their clues they don't know when to start eating again once they get too fat and stop. Neither do they know when it should be time to molt. They may go two years or more without eating or molting, before they finally pick up the few very subtle clues available to synchronize with the local seasons. The record currently stands at something like 3 years! If this happens to your rose you should try to supply the missing clues. Keep it in a warm place in summer and a cool place in winter. In their native Chile summer temperatures commonly go above 100 F (38 C), and winter temperatures often drop below freezing towards early morning. (These extremes are greatly tempered, however, by the tarantula's burrow.) While it might not be a good idea to allow them too high a summer temperature (keep it below 95 F or 35 C), consistent winter temperatures can drop into the 60s F (mid to high teens C) with little worry. Try to keep it in a room where artificial lighting isn't used very much so it can see a normal change in day length. Keep your Chilean rose in a seldom used guest room with the drapes or curtains pulled back, for instance. Just be absolutely certain that it will never be exposed to direct sunlight.

THE FIERCE ROSE But, being kept in a sunlight lit room is okay as long as the temperature doesn't get too extreme.

Back off, Bucko! Everybody overfeeds their Chilean rose. BAD IDEA! As you first bring it home, do not feed it at all for at least a week, maybe two weeks. It makes no sense whatsoever to stampede it with a bunch of rowdy crickets while it's still quasi-hysterical from the shipping and handling it endured to get into your care. When you do begin to feed it, only give it one (1) large cricket or the equivalent a week. Or, if more convenient, give it only four or five (4 or 5) crickets a month. NO. THAT IS NOT A MISPRINT! Maintain this feeding schedule for the rest of its life UNLESS it goes on a fast. If it stops eating for an extended period of time, don't worry. As a test to tell when it wants to start eating again, offer it only one (1) cricket every month in the evening. If it doesn't eat it by the next morning, remove the cricket and try again next month. You can give the cricket to one of your other tarantulas. (You don't have any other tarantulas? WELL! We're going to have to see what we can do about THAT!) Don't panic. Well fed Chilean roses can go easily for up to two years without

starving to death once they go on one of these little fasts. And, they often go on a fast, particularly in winter. Be patient and understanding. Consider it a life lesson. When it does begin to eat again, it's business as usual. Only give it one (1) large cricket or the equivalent a week. Or, if more convenient, give it only four or five (4 or 5) crickets a month. DON'T CHEAT!

HANDLING
Handling is one of those subjects that incites riots among tarantula keepers. Should you or shouldn't you? When should you? When shouldn't you? Which ones can be handled? Which can't? What's the best way to handle them? What methods should be avoided? And it goes on and on and on... The subject is far too complex to cover here. Read the entries on this subject in The Tarantula Keeper's Guide, now in its third edition, for an in-depth discussion of handling and the "dos" and the "don'ts." About 1 out of every 1,000 roses bites and the bite causes swelling and intense pain for several hours to a day. Nobody has yet lost life or limb over such a bite, however. If your rose begins to rear back and raises its front legs in a threatening posture as you try to pick her up, maybe you should label it a look-but-don't-touch pet or take it back to the pet shop for another one. The other

BURROWS 999 out of 1,000 will make perfect hand pets if you follow the basic rules.

Double-click the image to see a short video. (The video may not work on all computers or operating systems. Sorry. Our programming skills are rudimentary at best.) (Courtesy of Mark Thomas.)

BURROWING (NEW DATA)

For a long time enthusiasts were puzzled by roses' apparent unwillingness to burrow in a cage. It was thought that they might be vagabonds in nature, seldom if ever actually living in a formal burrow. However, recently Dr. G. B. Edwards (Curator: Arachnida & Myriapoda Florida State Collection of Arthropods, FDACS, Division of Plant Industry), while on a trip to Santiago Chile, examined Chilean rose tarantulas in large numbers living in burrows some 45 centimeters (18 inches) deep. Now we know: Their apparent reluctance to dig a burrow in captivity is apparently an artifact of that captivity, not a "natural" life style. (And, thanks to "JakyKong" of Kent, Washington for helping sort out a difficult sentence in this paragraph.) These authors have recently acquired photographs of the of Chilean roses in the wild, and a short video of a Chilean rose being teased from its burrow. The general experience in the hobby is that they don't require a burrow and the majority never use one. When given the chance we've seen them use a coconut shell as a place to hide, but all of ours have firmly rejected burrows when they have been offered. This is supported by the experience of many other keepers. Installing a coconut shell or a plastic aquarium plant that drapes over to produce a darkened cave-like space might be appreciated, however. It may decide that's a good place to hide. Otherwise, don't worry about it. However, if your Chilean rose does begin a major earth moving project in its cage, perhaps it would appreciate deeper substrate so it can construct a burrow. The subject of burrowing tarantulas in captivity is far too large and involved to be covered here, however. Consult The Tarantula Keeper's Guide, Third Edition for a thorough discussion of the subject with instructions.

BREEDING IN CAPTIVITY
This topic is far too long and involved to be addressed here in detail. Consult The Tarantula Keeper's Guide, Third Edition for a thorough discussion of the subject with instructions. Having said that, we will describe and discuss several of the simplest and more successful methods for hatching a surprise eggsac because the phenomenon is so common. So, somehow you acquired a Chilean rose tarantula as a pet within the last year, and now it has blessed you with an eggsac. Before anything else,

CONGRATULATIONS!
And we now present two methods for hatching the eggs that almost anybody can use. There's no need to panic, but you must institute these instructions as soon as possible after you discover the eggsac to prevent the eggs from desiccating and dying. Au Naturel

If the mother's cage is still quite clean, merely SLIGHTLY dampen between one-fourth and onethird of the substrate farthest away from the mother and her eggsac. Clean and refill the water dish with clean water. Cover all openings on the cage to prevent any significant ventilation. (Plastic food wrap usually works well on most cages.) Carefully move the cage to the warmest part of your home. This would often be on top of the refrigerator. DO NOT spill the water in the water dish. If the cage is not very clean, if you think the eggs have been damaged, or if the eggsac has been wet, a better idea would be to use the next method for caring for the eggs, the Nefcy Incubator. (Ryan first described his incubator on an Internet forum, and it was subsequently written up in The Tarantula Keeper's Guide, Third Edition. Ryan is responsible for a number of photographs in the book as well. Our sincere thanks and a tip of the proverbial hat for the service that Ryan has done for the hobby. Quietly check on Momma and her eggsac every three or four days. Redampen the substrate when it begins to get dry. Refill the water dish as the water evaporates. DO NOT mist or spray in the cage. DO NOT under any circumstances allow the eggsac to get wet. You may feed Momma the recommended one (1) cricket a week while she is brooding the eggsac. If she doesn't eat the cricket overnight, remove it the following day if you can do so with a minimum of disturbance to the brooding female. Otherwise, leave the cricket there. It can do little harm anyway, and Momma may eat it later. Leave the eggsac with Momma full term. If the eggs don't die, she'll take care of them just fine. The Nefcy Incubator Preferably beforehand, acquire the following:

Two plastic shoe boxes. Chose those that are approximately 7" wide X 14" long X 3.5" high (18 X 36 X 9 cm). (Note: You may only need one, but they're quite inexpensive and it's better to be safe.)

One pkg of standard paper coffeemaker filters.

Six one pint (500 ml), clear, plastic, deli cups. (Note: You may only need three, but they're quite inexpensive and it's better to be safe.)

One roll of heavy weight, paper toweling.

At least one (two are better) pairs of forceps.

Use a nail to melt ventilation holes in the sides of the plastic shoe boxes as high up the walls as possible, but low enough that the covers don't block them. Use pliers, the kitchen range, and a small nail to melt small holes, but make a dozen holes in each box. If you make too many you can cover the extras with tape. If you make too few you'll have a small problem melting more while the eggs are incubating. Try very hard to not inhale the vapors from the melting plastic. Open a window for ventilation nearby if you can. Install a double layer of paper toweling on the floor of the plastic shoe boxes. Insert the deli cups, and insert one coffee filter in each cup as shown in the photo. Replace the shoe boxes' covers and store the incubators away dry, until you need them.

SELECTED LINKS CONCERNING INCUBATORS Visit the following links for some additional information about incubators.

Incubator Tutorial

How Do You Open a Sac?

Artificial Incubator

As soon as you notice that Momma has an eggsac Also, perform searches on virtually all mark the date on your calendar. Then dampen the tarantula forums on the Internet for substrate as above. After a week or more (Some incubator. enthusiasts wait as long as a month.) you need to dampen ONLY THE PAPER TOWELS in your incubators. There should be ample water, but not enough to actually puddle on the box' floor. The coffee filters stay bone dry. Then take the eggsac away from Momma. You will need a pair of forceps or tweezers to grasp the eggsac, and a large serving spoon to gently fend her off while doing so. Momma is not going to let you steal her eggsac if she can help it, and you need to be patient, gentle, but forceful. Be careful not to hurt Momma or the eggsac. Grab the eggsac by an edge or corner, not around the middle. If you crush even one of the eggs you may precipitate a rampant bacterial infection that can eventually kill most or all of the eggs. Use the spoon upside down as a shield over the eggsac and ever so carefully tug on the eggsac to get it away from her. Try to get the bowl of the spoon between Momma's fangs and the eggsac. Once you get it way from her you can offer her a

NEFCY INCUBATOR cotton ball as a proxy eggsac. Some females will accept it, others are too smart!

Two of Ryan Nefcy's Incubators.

Heating a nail for melting holes in plastic. Very carefully open it over a wide baking dish or other pan by carefully snipping it with a pair of small scissors. Make a small incision to get the opening started, then carefully open it with forceps using the same motion as opening a bag of potato chips. This works a lot better if you have two pairs of forceps. If the eggs are loose, distribute them in approximately equal numbers between the DRY coffee filters in the deli cups. The floors of the deli cups should be less than about half covered with eggs. (Note: In a different world, if you were incubating eggs from several eggsacs or species you might write identifying information (e.g., species or Momma's name) on the floor of each coffee filter/deli cup set up in order to identify the mother and/or species, and avoid confusion later.) If the eggs are gobbed together in a lump, there is little hope for them. You can try to hatch them, but this condition is almost always terminal. You may try to free a few still viable eggs from the mass, but they're so fragile that it will be nearly impossible. Replace the lids on the shoe box incubators (Note: No lids go on the deli cups.) and place the incubators in a warm part of the house (e.g., on top of a refrigerator). If possible keep them at 80 F or slightly higher. At least once every day you need to very gently shift the shoe boxes around so as to roll the eggs into a new position. Once in a while you will have to replenish the water on the paper towel. Use room temperature tap water. BE CAREFUL THAT ABSOLUTELY NO WATER TOUCHES EITHER THE COFFEE FILTERS OR THE EGGS! Remember that you dampened the substrate in Momma's cage. Under any other circumstances this would have been forbidden. But, at that point we were much more interested in not allowing the eggs to dry out and die than about a rampant mite infestation. But, now with the eggsac in an incubator, you need to clean Momma's cage and set it up all squeaky-clean again. And, dry! Momma will also be molting in about 80 to 100 days from the production of the eggsac, so this is a

good time to clean house. Feed her as long as she eats, but expect her to go "off her feed" soon, too. Remember! Only one (1) large cricket a week. Or, four or five (4 or 5) a month! DON'T CHEAT! Patience, my child. Patience! The eggs will probably hatch between 70 and 90 days from the day the eggsac was produced. Mark your calendar. You have plenty of time to make preparations for the babies. While you're waiting, if you don't already have one, acquire a copy of The Tarantula Keeper's Guide, Third Edition and read the sections beginning on page 253 ("The Babies"), and beginning on page 272 ("The Blessed Event") through about page 295. (And, it isn't going to hurt you one bit to read the rest of the book too!) There are several other things that can make the babies' care much easier: 1. Assembly-line all operations. For instance, keep them individually in little bottles or vials, but keep these collected in trays or shoe boxes. Feed and water them in batches, or one box or tray at a time.

2. Set aside one evening (or other time) a week for their care. This is sacred time. Keep your weekly date.

3. Read the various tarantula books mentioned in Stan's Rant for more specific instructions and other ideas.

What Do You Do With All Those Babies? There may be as many as 250 babies in an eggsac, and that's clearly too many to keep regardless of how much you may love the little darlings! So, how do you get rid of the excess? Taking a cue from Nature (where 99+% of them die), some enthusiasts merely place all the babies at once in a very few one-gallon (four liter) jugs, and only feed them minimally. As they grow, they begin to eat each other, and the smaller, weaker, slower, or defective ones are almost always the first to go. Merely wait until you have them down to manageable numbers before you separate them into individual containers. Many enthusiasts object strenuously to this tactic on emotional grounds, but it has several advantages.

It reduces your work load.

It reduces the expense of buying enough food for all the babies by not wasting the rejects.

It weeds out individuals with less than desirable traits.

But, there are other strategies.

Give them away for Christmas, birthday, house warming, Bar Mitzvah, etc., presents! (Just kidding! Just kidding!)

On the Internet, search each arachnid forum you know about, or can find, for "For Sale, Buy or Trade" pages and advertise there. Contact each of the dealers advertising on those pages, asking if they can use them and how much they'll pay.

Post messages on the arachnid forums advertising them for "$1.00 each - you pay postage," or "Baby Chilean roses, $10 each, 3 for $25, postage paid." Stand back and brace yourself for the stampede!

Advertise in the "Pets for Sale" section of your local newspaper, or "bargain finder" type flyers.

Look up the name and contact info for the nearest herptile or tarantula club. Find out when they're going to hold their next show. Reserve a booth or contact another booth holder to negotiate sharing a booth.

YOU'VE GOTTA READ THIS BOOK!

Carolyn Swagerle, a confirmed, card carrying, hysterical arachnophobe, decided one day to meet her most fundamental fear head on, and this is the story of how one remarkable spider helped one remarkable lady. Annie Rose goes down in history as one of the world's better ambassadors for all eight legged creatures! But it doesn't stop there. Annie Rose had a surprise in store for Carolyn. Suddenly, Carolyn became the stepmother of 250 baby roses. What a way to cure your arachnophobia! In her book, Carolyn not only describes her conquest over a truly debilitating phobia, but she also details how she managed to hatch, care for, and eventually distribute the resulting babies. So, in reality when you read this book you're

Shipping your actually getting two stories for the price of one. little darlings is problematic at This book is available directly from the publisher, Authorhouse publishing, as best, and too well as all the booksellers listed elsewhere in this webpage and many more. involved to cover here. Do a search on the various Internet forums for information instead. But, in all cases (unless you've bundled shipping costs into the final price), the person you're sending the babies to, the recipient whether private enthusiast or commercial dealer, MUST pay the postage/freight. If you don't do this, you're going to lose your shirt! If you end up sending them to a dealer, ask for specific instructions on packing and shipping, insurance, and most especially, method of payment. Do not be shy! If you send them to other enthusiasts, try to do so only during warm weather.

SALES PITCH
We strongly recommend that you read a good book on tarantulas. You can get copies of the The Tarantula Keeper's Guide, Third Edition, mentioned above, Sam Marshall's Tarantulas and Other Arachnids (both rated quite highly by the American Tarantula Society ), Dr. R. G. Breene's Quick and Easy Tarantula Care (remarkably good in spite of its small size and modest price) and several others AT YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR FREE. If you like them you can get your own copies "off the shelf" from perhaps one-third or more of the pet shops in your area. Most can get them for you by special order if they're out of stock. In addition, these books are available by special order from every bookstore (the larger stores may even have copies in stock), directly from the publisher (Barron's Educational Series), and from any of the Internet based bookstores like (listed in alphabetical order) Abe Books, Alibris, Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, BooksPrice.com, and many more.

Bar Mitzvah presents! That's sweet. I like that, and I'm not even Jewish!

NAVIGATION
Jump to the top of this page. Jump to the motorhome webpage. Jump to the Spiders, Calgary webpage. Jump to the Index and Table of Contents for this website.

COMMUNICATIONS
Communicating with the authors is easy. Just select here.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Copyright 2003, Stanley A. Schultz and Marguerite J. Schultz. Select here for additional copyright information. This page was initially created on 2003-February-15. The last revision occurred on 2014-February-03.