Caring for a Pet Tarantula

Series Summary

Owning a pet can be an extremely satisfying endeavor, so it is no wonder that millions of people around the world keep companion animals. The most common pets are by far cats and dogs; however, the rising popularity of exotic pets has led to an increase in ownership of snakes, lizards, rats, mice and hamsters. Fish are also a popular pet for people who do not want too much responsibility. Studies show that pet ownership is beneficial to mental and physical health. In fact, medical studies now show that therapy animals can significantly improve the well-being of patients. In this free video series, a pet care specialist provides information on taking care of tarantulas. After correctly identifying the species of tarantula and its unique needs, discover how research can help a person take care of tarantulas. Learn about proper feeding, bedding and misting techniques with tips on tarantulas.

Video Transcript

"Today we're going to talk about tarantula care. And the most important thing to remember right off the bat, is that there are three different types of tarantulas, there are obligated burrowers, opportunistic burrowers, and arboreal tarantulas, now I'm not talking about species, I'm just talking about a classification here. Opportunistic burrowers are tarantulas that steel other animals burrows, being a rat or a rodent of some sort, or a lizard, they don't need a burrow but they prefer one. A obligated burrower is a tarantula that builds its own burrow, and must have a burrowing area to feel comfortable. An arboreal tarantula is a tarantula that is going to live in the trees, or on bushes up high, that has lots of climbing room, which is important to know before doing your tarantula setup, because different types of tarantulas have different needs. Always make sure you get the correct identification of the species of tarantula that you're dealing with, don't ever go by common names, get a scientific name with your tarantula, they have lots of different tarantulas out there and lots of different needs to them, so that's very, very important. Secondly, research, research, research, research the heck out of it, talk to everybody you can, it's very important. As far as bedding goes for tarantulas, most people are going to use a coco bedding, which is a shredded coconut husk, a peat moss or a soil and vermiculite mixture. These are all bedding that are going to hold humidity well, but also dry out fairly well, and it has various different uses, they also tend to be rather light and fluffy and hold burrows very well, so it's important to be able to give your tarantula that if he's a burrower. Now as far as everyday care for tarantulas go, the important thing is just to make sure that they have fresh water daily, and that they get fed basically weekly. Most tarantulas do not need a high amount of food, 1 to 2 crickets a week is just fine for maintenance of an average tarantula, now it's not going to be a rule, you kind of have to watch the abdomen of the tarantula and see if it's getting bigger, smaller, and judging by that, you can judge whether or not if you're feeding too much or too little. The other important thing to do is, if you have a tarantula that is a high humidity tarantula, you need to be misting him probably daily, maybe not daily, maybe every other day, but keep up on it, he has to have that humidity to make him healthy to make sure that he molts properly. Really, the trick to keeping tarantulas is getting their environment down, and if you can get their environment down, everything else is easy and gravy. They're very, very easy to keep as long as you do your research, so make sure you know your species."