02/06/2025
Hello fellow spider friends! I wanted to update you.
It's been a long while since I posted here. I moved from FL to NC a couple years ago and wasn't sure if I'd continue with my jumpers or not. I had familiarity with Repticon shows and other spider breeders in Florida, but I didn't have any connections up here. I didn't know if anyone was interested in jumper pets around here. I still had a number of Spookie Boo's (great?) grandkids as well as a few unrelated spiders from other breeders but I was on the fence about pairing them, since once that is started you can end up with a large number of spiderlings who need frequent care for their first few months. I no longer had a great reptile store nearby with easy access to fruit flies and other supplies. I was super busy around the time we moved and kept putting off pairing. I finally went to a couple Repticon shows around here (Asheville and Atlanta) and saw there were a number of jumping spider vendors already in the area. I talked to some and they weren't interested in getting more spiderlings, they had plenty of their own.
We were very busy with working to build and promote our business, so I found most times we were already attending an event and I would miss the dates for Repticon and the other similar shows.
As much as I was proud to have a several generation line of captive bred jumpers with carefully documented lineage, and had been learning more with each generation, it looked like the market here was pretty well saturated and I didn't want to be bringing spiders into the world without knowing there'd be homes for most of them. I also felt like I didn't have the time and resources to dedicate to giving them the best life.
My last great granddaughter of Spookie Boo's line passed a few days ago. She was pretty old and had been moving slowly for a while, but was still a sweet thing. It made me really sad, but maybe some of her blood continues with the other breeders I traded spiders with.
Spiders are still in my life though. I still have about a dozen tarantulas who I love, and some new jumping spiders have come to me. I found a P otiosus girl in our bathroom over winter, and a P audax girl took up residence in our mailbox. I often see other smaller species around, like P putnami, E militaris, C sylvanus, H mitrata, and others. When I see them I give them water and food if I can and let them on their way. I am also frequently moving little grass spiders outside.
I brought the otiosus and audax into my care in empty enclosures. She was sweet and curious and allowed me to hold her. The otiosus got plump with spring and I decided to raise her babies. I got fruit flies and am currently raising about 2 dozen of her spiderlings. She looks like she is ready to lay again.
The audax I took in last week and just laid so I expect spiderlings in a month or so. I will have so share some posts of them. I plan to release the majority of them back in the wild and keep just a couple to befriend as pets. We have a good size property that we leave wild and do not use pesticides etc. I am happy to be in a place with more of the wild around me, and we are getting out on more adventures working to do what we want.
I hope you all continue to love and be kind to jumpers in your life, whether you keep them as pets or not. I find once you start to see them in the wild, you see them a lot more from then on. They're always around.
I hope my experience and information will continue to help more folks find out how wonderful they are. I still spread the word to anyone with arachnophobia to just give them a chance.
