I have always been keen on invertebrates, and back in the
day when it was easy to get tarantulas I would take on
anything; I’m basically a hoarder. Then, all of a sudden,
they just caught on. I have 200 breeding females and 40
males and try to do 70-80 matings per year. I have a lot
of rare species, including some that I don’t have mates
for.
iH: Obviously you keep the various localities separate?
JB: Yes, but you can’t actually hybridise tarantulas,
because they have specific pheromones. Animals from
different locales may breed but will not produce a viable
egg sac.
‘Back when it was easy to get
tarantulas I would take on
anything. Then, all of a sudden,
they just caught on!’
iH: How do you raise so many babies?
JB: We take the egg sacs from the
mothers when they are ripe and open
them ourselves - they are a lot easier to
deal with that way. We focus on one tub
at a time, raising the temperature and
feeding them up until ready to sell. The
others are kept cooler and not fed. They
are fine like this for two months; after
that they start to eat each other!
iH: What do you feed them?
JB: We used to feed them pinhead
crickets, but now we use House Fly
larvae. The slings will happily eat the
larvae, but when they emerge as flies
and try to dry their wings out the spiders
are attracted to the movement and grab
them. Later we switch to crickets and
woodies.
iH: How quickly do they mature?
JB: If they’re kept warm with plenty of
food, the males will mature in 2-4 years
and the females in 4-6. Males have a
lifespan of about 5-6 years, while
females will live to an age of 12-15. I
once heard of a zoo that claimed they
had a female that lived for 35 years, and
Left: ‘We evolved to having 6 x 12m.
Stalls at the expos - the last one was 6 x
15m.’
Right: ‘I started up Townsville Snake
Catchers and now have about 20 jobs
per week, ‘
was an adult when they obtained it!
iH: It’s not so easy to take tarantulas from the wild now
is it?
JB: No, in Queensland you can take animals for a
personal collection, but you are not allowed to dispose of
them, or their progeny, without a harvesting licence. You
must apply for a quota to be collected in a specific
location. Problem is that some people have not filled
their quotas (they may have boosted numbers to be
greedy) and this has made the authorities suspicious that
numbers may be decreasing.
Again, in Queensland, if you wish to sell more than five
slings, you need a commercial permit, but I can sell a
fully-developed Sydney Funnel-web to an eight-year-old
without any paperwork.
iH: That’s bureaucracy for you. You also breed funnel-
webs don’t you?
JB: Yeah, in NSW you can collect as many spiders as