Summer Growth Boom

Hey guys. Just wondering if any of you experience what I like to call a summer growth boom. It seems to happen to me every year. During the winter, the house is kept at around 20-21C, and nothing seems to happen. T's stop eating, molting, etc. Then spring and summer comes, and suddenly the house temps start to average 24-25C, an it seems like everything comes back to life. LP's start molting once a month again, OBT's start to teleport..

Also wondering if any of you who have had experience with this phenomena know if this cycle can be detrimental or not. I understand that T's can alter their metabolism according to temp, and I haven't had any of my slings or older t's die due to temp yet. Just worried it may be stressful for them.

I do have a large heat mat that would (i believe) effectively eliminate this cycle, but I've never seen it as detrimental. Any opinions / thoughts?

When tarantulas are kept warmer there metabolism increase as well as there growth rates (kinda go hand in hand). Its understandable that when things cool down animals tend to slow down. As for it being detrimental i have no clue. I know its not for north american species as they are subjected to it regularly.

I have the opposite happen....while summer is basically normal behavior, because I heat my t room in the winter and basically hold it between 75 and 85 degrees, I get markedly better growth rates in winter. Summer comes and the temp ebbs and flows with the weather a lot more, so my summer temps, while warm, aren't nearly as consistently warm for me. I do live by Lake Michigan though, so my temps stay a bit on the mild side with a huge cold water lake down the road.

Don't use the heat mat

Nothing you're doing is in the least bit detrimental.

In Canada as well. I've been keeping my T's at a pretty consistent temp summer or winter so I don't really notice any change to be honest. My current younger, faster growing species seem to be keeping up to the molt once per 3-4 month routine currently.

I do notice on the days when it's way more warm and humid the T's do seem way "derp-ier" though. Science seems to back up my observations . http://phys.org/news/2015-04-tarantula-disintegrates.html

i myself do not see that boom. because i always keep my temp at ~27c[80f] in the winter. so i dont see as big of a boom per say. but i do notice a little more growth in the summer when the temps fluctuate from 30-38c[86-100] with 44-46[111-115] not being unheard of for a few hours with heat index.. but it seems the molts are a little faster in the warmer months

<My temps are 70-75 Year round so I dont think I have higher growth during summer. Do generally have a lot of molts when winter is over though, oddly.!!

Tarantulas do not experience constant temps nor humidity nor light exposure in the wild. It's normal for there to be daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal changes. As mentioned, they do respond to circadian and seasonal rhythms be they natural or artificially induced or altered. That being said, many WC spiders continue to attempt to follow the seasonal rhythm of their land of origin, regardless of captive husbandry. IME, even captive bred specimens within a genus or species seem to sync with each other as far as molts, changes in activity levels, etc.

Formerphobe said:

Tarantulas do not experience constant temps nor humidity nor light exposure in the wild. It's normal for there to be daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal changes. As mentioned, they do respond to circadian and seasonal rhythms be they natural or artificially induced or altered. That being said, many WC spiders continue to attempt to follow the seasonal rhythm of their land of origin, regardless of captive husbandry. IME, even captive bred specimens within a genus or species seem to sync with each other as far as molts, changes in activity levels, etc.

Click to expand...

Indeed, but it's really difficult to give them the varying temperatures. Especially if you're keeping a bunch of different species from different places above and below the equatorial lines. I think that's why most T keepers keep a more constant temp normally. At least that's my understanding, I'm always happy to be corrected .