In the early years, when reptile pets were not yet popular, people were still afraid of amphibians, reptiles, and arthropods, and did not know much. Until recent years, the climbing circle has slowly become popular, and people have begun to contact and understand their originally unfamiliar animals, such as leopard striped palaces, maned lion lizards, pig-nosed snakes, corn snakes, milk snakes, tortoises, bird-catching spiders, and beetles with various flowers and branches.
When I was in college, one of my classmates put up many boxes in the rental house with all kinds of bird-catching spiders, and I often ran to see, this kind of large spider that people used to be afraid of when they saw it, and now more and more people are raising it.
Before often seeing questions like "what is the mentality of people who raise spiders", in fact, it is very simple, pets since ancient times are not only cats and dogs so interactive, but can be roughly divided into three categories.
Brazilian white-knee bird-catching spider Acanthoscurria geniculata
The first type is interactive, you can raise it to interact with it, such pets are mostly more intelligent and emotional, such as pet cats and pet dogs;
The second type is functional, for example, many people now raise horses as pets, they can ride, can also be engaged in equestrian competitions, and various types of working dogs, but also have their own skills;
The third category is ornamental, such pets are generally interactive, but have colorful or distinctive appearances, and some can make a special sound or provide ornamental performances, such as goldfish, koi, cockroaches, bird watching, etc.
Ornamental pets have always been in short supply, and China is still a famous exporter of goldfish and koi, so there is nothing excessive about raising bird spiders, they are colorful, whether it is hunting or daily activities are quite ornamental.
Brazilian black velvet bird catcher Grammostola pulchra
Bird catcher spider is a general term for the species of the bird catcher spider family Theraphosidae in the order spider, due to translation errors, it is often said to be "tarantula" in the domestic media, but in fact, the real tarantula is the general name of the Lycosidae species of the tarantula family, and the two families have huge differences in size and appearance, and cannot be confused.
Bird-catching spiders are widely distributed in the southern and northern hemispheres near the equator, and there are more than a thousand species that have been found so far, and only a few have been developed into pets, and even fewer are common, that is, more than a dozen.
So what do you need to pay attention to when raising bird-catching spiders? Today I will introduce to you the four important aspects that need to be paid attention to in raising bird-catching spiders.
African orange babo bird catcher spider Pterinochilus murinus
<h1>1. Arrange the correct habitat</h1>
Laying out a suitable and correct habitat environment for bird-catching spiders is the most basic thing to raise bird-catching spiders. From the perspective of habitat mode, bird-catching spiders can be divided into three types: arboreal, ground and burrowing, and these three types of living environments are different.
Arboreal bird-catchers require a tall, thin enclosure with coconut soil at the bottom and a piece of bark, with the bottom inserted into the soil and leaning obliquely against the inner wall of the enclosure.
Ground-dwelling bird-catching spiders do not need bark to inhabit, laying the bottom of the box with flat coconut soil and placing a shelter for it.
Burrowing bird-catching spiders will dig their own burrows to inhabit, less to the ground, so the coconut soil must be thickly laid to give it enough space to dig down.
Goliath Giant Birdcatcher Theraphosa blondi
<h1>2. Pay attention to the control of temperature and humidity</h1>
Bird-catching spiders mainly live in tropical areas, so the general temperature requirements are relatively high, but the requirements for humidity are not the same, because some bird-catching spiders are distributed in humid forests, and some are distributed in arid and semi-arid savannas, rocky mountains, deserts and other places. Therefore, before raising bird-catching spiders, shovelers must first find out the specific origin and native habitat environment of the bird-catching spider species they raise.
If you are too lazy to check its native information, then the shoveler can go to the Internet to find the specific breeding introduction of the bird-catching spider you keep, because the bird-catching spider that is raised as a pet will basically have detailed breeding information to consult.
If you control the temperature, you can use air conditioning to adjust the indoor environment, use a heating pad to adjust the temperature of the small environment of the feeding box, and humidity can be controlled by setting a water basin and spraying water on the coconut soil.
Brachypelma albopilosum, a curly bird catcher in Honduras
<h1>3. Choice of food</h1>
Bird-catching spiders are carnivores, their way of eating is to bite the prey after injecting venom to paralyze the prey, and then inject digestive fluid to decompose the internal structure of the prey, when the internal tissues and organs of the prey are dissolved almost, the bird-catching spider will suck the body fluids of the prey, and finally only the dry, crumpled shell is left, abandoned.
Therefore, the best choice of food for bird-catching spiders is arthropods, such as crickets, mealworms (bread worms), barley worms, corn borers, cherry red, Dobia and other insects. These bugs are sold online, mostly from regular farms, so there is generally no problem.
If the bird-catcher spider has just arrived at home or is too young to refuse to eat, the shoveler can choose to cut the worm into two pieces and pass it with tweezers, so that the bird catcher spider can touch the slurry from the insect, which can play a lure effect.
Solomon bird-catching spider Lasiodora parahybana
<h1>4. Precautions during molting</h1>
Bird-catching spiders are arthropods that molt and grow. Bird-catching spiders during molting are fragile, unable to feed, and need to be properly cared for. When the bird-catching spider's appetite decreases, the color becomes gray, the gap in the back plate expands, and the activity time decreases, it is likely to be about to molt.
Before molting, the bird-catching spider will first make a "bed" for itself with spider silk, and then lie on the net bed with eight feet facing the sky, as if dead, and the shoveler must not panic. After lying down for a while, the bird catcher moves eight legs and a pair of chelated limbs to stretch and contract, then the dorsal plate is completely cracked, the cephalothorax is the first to shed, then the feet and abdomen, and finally all of them are shed.
The newly molted bird-catcher spider is fragile, incapacitated, and needs a period of rest to get back to normal.
Psalmopoeus irminia, a Bird-Catching Spider in Venezuela
During the molting period, we must pay attention to more water, only in the case of sufficient humidity will the bird-catching spider will molt smoothly, if it is too dry, the bird-catching spider is likely to molt failure, the light one or two legs are lost, and the heavy one is directly stuck in the old skin. After losing the leg, the molt can regenerate, but if it dies, it cannot be revived.
In addition, if the bird-catching spider has live bread worms, barley worms and other insects in its feeding box when molting, it must be taken out, because the bird-catching spider during the molting period has no resistance and is easy to be "killed" by the bread worm.
After molting, the color of the bird-catching spider will be much more gorgeous, and the juvenile and sub-adult bird-catching spiders grow more rapidly, and almost every time the molt will grow a lot, the color will also change (hair color), until the final shape. It is also interesting to observe the changes in the process of raising bird-catching spiders.
Oil-painted pink-toed bird-catching spider Caribena versicolor