Crazy (Critters) pets to have.....??

[Donny Lawson]

I have 4 Black widows andother types of spiders in a large container along with other bugs(for food).I just like to study them."NEVER" touch them though.A friend of mine was put in the hospital for 3 months after being bit from one of these pretty things.
Donny

[travis howe]

Your point?:confused:

[Mike Cruz]

I wonder if they make a SS (Spider Stop)...you know, you touch it and you can't get hurt...

[Donny Lawson]

No point, just strange pets I guess.Most people kill them but I like to catch them.It's fun to watch them fight with other spiders.they are very dominate.
Donny

[Steve Rozmiarek]

My brother came down with a nasty bit of blood poisioning after an encounter with one of those. Not going to find them as a pet in my house!

If you want a crazy pet, try a dauchshund puppy. Their antics are completely nuts!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I was bit by a black widow spider when I was in my early 20's. I sweated off 8 lbs. in a little over 3 days. It isn't pleasant.

[Rick Potter]

I don't mean to engage in one-upsmanship, but my mother in law died from a black widow bite. She was 87, and went to the hospital with a badly swollen leg that was all blue. They were preparing to operate on it when she died.

They found the spider in her bedding.

Rick Potter

[Brian Ashton]

No point, just strange pets I guess.Most people kill them but I like to catch them.It's fun to watch them fight with other spiders.they are very dominate.
Donny

I've got to be honest I find most things that crawl on this planet to be very interesting but putting two animals together simply to watch them fight is repulsive. Sorry if that sounds arrogant but...

[Donny Lawson]

I find alot of them around the wood pile that I use and I usually just kill them but about 6 months ago I started putting them in a large plastic container along with other bugs and spiders.I have things from their own enviorment so it's not like they are the only things in there. They can catch other prey.It's like watching nature as normal. The container is in my workshop and NOT in the house.(Wife says NO).I hope to find out there weakness one of these days.I know one weakness is the bottom of my shoe but I'm looking for a natural weakness.
Donny

[Rod Sheridan]

I have been the caretaker of a Leopard Gecko for the past three years.

I hadn't planned to be, however my daughter moved out, leaving Taavi behind, because of a no pets clause in her condo.:rolleyes:

Diann will play with Taavi, however she won't feed him because he only eats live food.

I really prefer the 3 household cats as pets, I guess anything outside of a dog or cat I'm not interested in having.

Regards, Rod.

[Dusty Fuller]

These aren't too far from the norm, but one coworker had an opossum and another had an albino skunk. Me? I just have a dog and an occasional stray cat.

[Rick Prosser]

I have a fondness for snakes. Have had boas, pythons, and local varieties as pets. My wife and I bought a couple of pythons as a 20th anniversary gift to ourselves. One thing I learned about people and snakes - most people are either fascinated with snakes, or really hate them.

Now, we are pet free, but we usually stop and inspect any snakes, lizards, or other wildlife we come across on our property. Might even hold onto them for a couple days for observation.

Spiders and ants are the only things that I really don't like. Had a bad experience :( with fire ants when I was younger - and spiders have always given me the willies. The spider colorings and their webs can be beautiful though.

[Pat Germain]

While I'm not really afraid of anything, I have a healthy respect for poisonous spiders. I was bitten in five places by a brown recluse spider when I was young. That was quite enough for me. I was very lucky not to require skin grafts. No way would I mess with black widow spiders; except to get rid of them.

Interestingly, I read that although there is an antivenom for black widow bites, doctors only use it if they fear the victim will likey die. This is because the antivenom will work on a person only once. I don't know why this is, but again, I find it interesting.

[Zach England]

A guy in my office has had a black widow in a little aquarium for a few years. He feeds it crickets and stuff he finds in the building. I think it is creepy.

[Ken Garlock]

Hi you want some 'fun' this summer, put an adult praying Mantis in the jar with your widow.

The Mantis will win:)

[Paul Atkins]

This thread could get very odd. I put a big black widow in a jar to show off when I was a kid and forgot about it . I found it a year later and it was still alive in the jar and very skinny. My dad used to give me a dime for everyone I found. They were everywhere for a while.

[Rick Potter]

This is probably pretty well known, but during WWII, there was a cottage industry in SoCal raising black widows. The military used the webs for bombsights. The main strands (not the circles) are very tough, and could be stretched to make a fine line for the bombsights.

Later in the war, I believe synthetics were introduced to take their place.

Rick Potter

On a related note, there was a mine near the Salton Sea that was guarded heavily, and contained optical grade mica, also used in the bombsights, till they developed a manufactured glass that equalled it. I jeeped to it recently.

[Bryan Morgan]

This is probably pretty well known, but during WWII, there was a cottage industry in SoCal raising black widows.

Luckily in my part of SoCal the brown widows moved in and pushed the black widows east. As far as I know the brown widows aren't nearly as nasty. I haven't seen a black widow in a year or two.

I don't really have any weird pets. Just a couple of mutts and a saltwater reef tank with some fish and corals. I have a hummingbird family in a tree out back. They like to hang out around my porch and aren't really afraid of us or the dogs.

Theres a flock of green macaw parrots that live in our neighborhood. They might make nice pets one at a time but as a flock "in the wild" they are horribly obnoxious and loud. They aren't native here but they escaped a wildlife zoo type place a long time ago I'm told. Beautiful birds but man I just want to blast them sometimes. :)

[curtis rosche]

I was bit by a black widow spider when I was in my early 20's. I sweated off 8 lbs. in a little over 3 days. It isn't pleasant.

dont let a wrestling coach hear that :D

[Will Boulware]

I've had a lot of strange pets, but a widow? Nah. Those get a size 13 very quickly. I spend a bit of time here and there under my old car. Nothing quite like crawling under the ford to find one of those shiny red and black things crawling down a transmission casing inches above your head! :eek: On the plus side, it teaches you new words...

As far as strange pets go, I've had a multitude of snakes, lizards, and large Amazon fish. Don't have any now, but our local pet store has a very pretty blood python on the shelf...

[Bill Cunningham]

Back in the 60's or 70's (can't remember) I had a pet Rock!
Wasn't very active, didn't eat much, even though it never rolled, it gathered no moss.. One day I just found it laying in it's box, rigor had set in, it had a very gray pallor, I buried it in the yard deep enough not to be hit by the lawn mower. We all sang "Rock of ages" and I'm sure it's now in a much better place!

[Gregory Lyons]

I had an infestation of brown widows in my garage shop several years back, I got medieval on them when I woke up to a BW web spun over my kitchen sink.

From wikipedia: "Dr. G.B. Edwards, a University of Florida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida) arachnologist claims that brown widow venom is twice as potent as the black widow venom, but is usually confined to the bite area and surrounding tissue, as opposed to the black widow."

~g

[Ernie Nyvall]

I have 4 Black widows andother types of spiders in a large container along with other bugs(for food).I just like to study them."NEVER" touch them though.A friend of mine was put in the hospital for 3 months after being bit from one of these pretty things.
Donny

I just want to say... I'm glad you are a few states over.:D

[Mike Cutler]

Your spiders are a sign of a healthy eco system. That you have that many of them indicates to me that you probably have a lot of interesting things around.

I've kept Tarantulas, scorpions, (real ones, not the sissy pants one from the pet shop). I've had rats, various snakes, including a western diamond back, That got a little weird. It eventually went to Cal Poly Pomona, and of course the usual dogs, cats and birds.

I guess I've always tried hard not to just kill beneficial species.
If the widows are your thing, that's cool. They're better off outside though.