Hi and welcome.
My name is Richard.
I’m a UK-based exotic pet fanatic, currently based in the East Midlands.
Childhood asthma prevented me from keeping many “standard” pets like rodents. Thankfully my parents allowed me to start keeping exotics instead back in the 1990’s. In the early days I tried my hand at keeping everything from green anoles, to California king snakes, and of course a range of different tarantulas. Over time the collection grew and grew as I tried my hand at caring for various reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates.
As university, my animal keeping evolved, as I started to breed tarantulas on a small scale, and even tried my hand at importing invertebrates. I became a committee member of the BTS for a short period of time, before limited student funds meant attending committee meetings became too expensive for me.
These days I enjoy a collection of several hundred tarantulas covering just over 50 species currently in culture. I breed a small number of species each year, and will often be found at invertebrates shows either exhibiting or looking for my next purchase.
Just a few of the slings I’m currently rearing up (each big plastic tub houses 16 individually-kept tarantula spiderlings):
With over 20 years of experience keeping and breeding snakes, lizards, tarantulas and more I hope you find my articles of use.
If you’d like to connect then you can always contact me here, though please be aware that I don’t have too much time available to respond to individual pet care questions so it may take a while to receive a reply.
Thanks for visiting, and please consider adding me to your bookmarks so you can come back in the future. I regularly add new articles so a return visit is well worth it!