Does anyone have a Rose Hair tarantula?

[My Peanuts]

My brother wants a Rose Hair Tarantula. If anyone has one or knows about them please post some knowledge. Anything would be helpful. Thanks!

[aly]

My best friend has one I think. I know she has 3 tarantulas and I thought one of them was a rose hair. I will ask her and see if she can write up what she knows about them.

[micki76]

I want a Tarantula desperately, so I've been doing a LOT of research. :)

Here are a couple of good pages for info, pictures, etc.

http://www.tarantulas.com/

http://www.atshq.org

[CathyBogart]

I do I do!!

Her name is Morrigan, and she's fabulous! She lives in a ten gallon tank, with a log hide at either end, and a shallow ceramic water dish. I have a 25 watt heat bulb on her at night, and also during the day IF it's a cool day out.

They are a desert species, so they should NOT be misted, and in fact this can stress them out if done too often.

For substrate, I recommend Bed-A-Beast or Eco-Earth, or a similar product. (fine soil, DO NO USE BARK....they can fall and seriously hurt themselves on bark!) Once the bed-a-beast is mixed, pack it pretty hard into the bottom of the tank, it should be quite solid and not loose at all.

They need a shallow water dish, and it has to be very easy to clean. No wood dishes, or porous plastic, because these can build up bacteria and are hard to get really clean. Ceramic or hard plastic are the best. Don't use a sponge in their water dish, because the tarantula will actually DRINK from the dish, not just suck up moisture from the sponge. Sponges also build up harmful bacteria quickly.

Putting a small rock in the water dish is a good idea if you find drowned crickets in it.

The biggest mistake people make with tarantulas is not keeping them on a good feeding regimen. Offer the tarantula 3-5 crickets. If they aren't eaten in three days, pull them out and wait two to three weeks, then offer another 3-5 crickets. Any time there are uneaten crickets in the tank, there should also be some sort of food for the crickets, so that they don't munch on the tarantula!! :(

Feeding it other prey items....it's nice to offer a variety of food, and I think it improves the tarantula's health. I offer mine waxworms, mealworms, silkworms, anoles, and various other prey....and I've had varying degrees of success with her. However...I never offer rodent prey. Mice are simply too fattening. It would be ok to offer a pinkie mouse once in awhile (and YES, a spider WILL take frozen-thawed pinkies) but I really wouldn't. Even wax-worms are too fattening in my opinion, and I only feed them rarely.

Moulting is probably the least-understood behavior in pet tarantulas. Leading up to a moult, a tarantula's abdomen will get darker (this can be really hard to see, so don't feel bad if it gets missed the first few times) and the T usually stops eating.

If you find a tarantula on its back, DO NOT TOUCH IT!!! It is moulting, and even disturbing the cage slightly could kill it. For this reason, the tank should be set up on a very steady surface.....not on a computer desk like mine currently is. -_- Moulting generally takes a few hours.

After a moult, the tarantula is very fragile. Under NO circumstances should it be offered food for one week after moulting, because its exoskeleton is not hard and it is very vulnerable. It should also not be handled during this time.

(As a fun aside, if you find he moult soon enough after the tarantula is done, you can stretch it out and make it look like you have another tarantula! These moults are really neat and make great presents for bio teachers!)

Female Rose-hairs can live more then 20 years, and males tend to live only about 4-5. Males are also more skittish and generally aren't good to handle.

Please take the time to make sure you get a captive-bred spider, as many of the adults out on the market are wild-caught, and I think it's really sad. There are a lot of great online resources for captive bred tarantulas, and I'd be glad to help you (or your brother) find one.

If you'd like to do more research www.arachnoboards.com is the BEST source for information I've found so far. (they ectually have a sticky thread in the tarantula forum all about the care of Rose-hairs! ...the thread was put up by the authors of....) Also, see if you can find "The Tarantula Keeper's Guide" by Stanley and Marguerite Schultz. It is in my opinion the BEST book on the market about tarantulas.

Um....hope I've been helpful, I'd be glad to answer any questions or fill in any blanks I might have left!

[micki76]

I think some pics of Morrigan would be awesome! :D

[ChrisH]

I don't have a tarantula, or any knowledge to pass on, but I do have a question.
Is this Roseback, who I met a some months back, the same as the Rose Hair?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/CwmmawrJet/Bobby%20Boy/Snakes%20Alive/Rosebackspider.jpg

On my hand. :D
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/CwmmawrJet/Bobby%20Boy/Snakes%20Alive/Rosebackspideronmyhand.jpg

Chris

[CathyBogart]

Yes indeedy, that is a Grammostola Rosea.....looks to me like a big, GORGEOUS male!! (That coloration is more typical of boys, plus his abdomen is smaller than an average female's.)

My grandmother has my camera currently, I would LOVE to take some pics of my girlie, and I will take/post them when I get my camera back!

[micki76]

Originally posted by WolfChan
My grandmother has my camera currently, I would LOVE to take some pics of my girlie, and I will take/post them when I get my camera back!

YAY! I can’t wait!

Chris, very cool!! :D

[CathyBogart]

These are a different spider than the one I have now, but they're good pics anyways...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/wolfchan/morriganface.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/wolfchan/morrigan1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/wolfchan/morrigan.jpg

[My Peanuts]

Thanks for all the info. I'll share it with my brother :D

[Rottieluver45]

Aren't you afraid they'll hurt you? How do you know what to and what not to do?

[CathyBogart]

I don't handle my spider because she is a "show" spider....meaning I want her to look her absolute best at all times, and handling can be stressful and cause them to flick hairs off of their abdomens. Truth be told, I'm much happier just watching her then handling her...she actually does intimidate me a bit. :)

However....Rose hairs are not biters. The arachnoboards has a "bite report" section, with a thread for each species, and even though it is an active, bustling forum with thousands of members, many of which have HUNDREDS of tarantulas, there are only six rosie bites listed.

Out of those six bites, only one sounds particularly painful, so I suspect that that person had an allergic reaction. Also, out of the six bites listed, five of them were people trying to pick up a tarantula that was already stressed about something, and the sixth was an example of someone trying to pick up a tarantula improperly. So.....be gentle, be patient, and when a rosie rears up at you when you're reaching for it, heed its warning!

An upset tarantula will rear up its front legs at you, or flick hairs with its back legs, or will sit huddled up with its legs bunched together as tightly as it can get them.

The proper way to pick up a docile T like a Rosie is generally to come down from the top and "cup" them in your hand, or to scoop them up with a cup and let them come out on their own. Putting one hand in front of a T and trying to "bump" it up with the other hand is a REALLY easy way to get nailed....if you startle the T it will jump at what it percieves to be an attacker.....the giant hand right in front of it!!

Some people also recommend gently grasping the T on the sides, between the second and third pair of legs....but if you don't pick the T STRAIGHT UP off the ground it can actually lose legs this way, and it's also a really easy way to acidentally puncture its body, which almost always means death.

Overall the general concensus is that on the rare occasion a rosie bites, the fangs going in doesn't feel like much, and the bite becomes itchy and then slightly sore, like a bruise. I do want to emphasize again though that this is RARE!

Oh, the thread is here if anyone wants to read it....

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=287

[aly]

My friend does indeed have a Rose Hair (named Rosalee). She said that is her favorite of her tarantulas and she is the easiest and most docile to handle. My friend also recommended a Desert Blonde tarantula. She used to have one who LOVED to be handled. Thats just been her experience. I see Wolfchan has given tons of helpful info so I'll leave that to her and the other tarantula experts!

[Shelteez2]

We used to have one named Mata Hari. Pretty cool girl, she was.


Ooops, still signed in as Shelteez ..... this is actually Twisterdog. Shelteez would NEVER have a spider for a pet! ;)