# Oothbound Ghost?



## FeistyMcGrudle (May 7, 2019)

Hey everyone. I am posting today because I am concerned about my oldest Ghost. She has been an adult for over a month now and has yet to lay an ooth. Her sister on the other hand molted to adult about two weeks after her and has laid two ootheca already, as of this morning. As you can see in the picture, her abdomen has been swollen like this for a couple weeks, she can barely hold her abdomen up, and whenever she hangs to the side it just kinda flops over to a 45 degree angle. She has been paired multiple times with a male, although I have no solid evidence copulation actually took place. I have been feeding her a combination of moths and blue bottle flies. My other females abdomen was about half the size and she has already laid two ootheca. She is currently in a 29 gallon aquarium, temps between 75-85, RH is low, around 30%. I have two males and have been swapping them out in hopes of breeding, but have since removed the males thinking they may have been stressing her out, and she tried to eat one of them. Is there anything else I can do to help her? Or am I worrying over nothing?


----------



## hysteresis (May 8, 2019)

I'm not as far along as you, but shouldn't the humidity be much higher than 30%?


----------



## Jaywo (May 8, 2019)

I would suggest you bring up the humidity as @hysteresis mentioned and lessen her feeding. Maybe one fly every other day. They can't breathe well once they get eggbound and feeding more just makes it harder for them. Unfortunately, outside of letting them loose to roam I don't have anymore tricks. It always sucks to lose a eggbound female.


----------



## Mantis Lady (May 8, 2019)

Jaywo said:


> It always sucks to lose a eggbound female.


yeah, that really sucks. I lost my H.menbranacea a few weeks ago being eggbound.


----------



## Jaywo (May 8, 2019)

Little Mantis said:


> yeah, that really sucks. I lost my H.menbranacea a few weeks ago being eggbound. Those girls are eggbound so often, I lost one of my venosas


----------



## hysteresis (May 8, 2019)

A variety of sticks, and open spaces. Increased humidity and lots of ventilation. That's stuff I'm repeating.


----------



## Graceface (May 9, 2019)

My Ghosts aren't too picky, but I've heard of some preferring sticks of a specific thickness. It is possible she doesn't like the sticks offered

 30% RH is definitely far too low. 

I would try offering different sticks for laying as well as increase the humidity to 60%. That is about all you can do, sadly. 

Good luck!


----------



## Predatorhousepet (May 10, 2019)

Graceface said:


> My﻿ Ghosts aren't too picky, but I've heard of some preferring﻿ sticks of a specific thickness. It is possible she doesn't like the sticks offered


My ghosts seem to prefer laying on the 1/4" dowel rods I use on the lid of their terrarium to hold the screen in place. Overall they seem to like laying on branches of about 1/4" or slightly thicker but under 1/2" in diamenter. They also like laying high up in general, near the ceiling whenever possible.

Once I moved a female from her 12"x12"×12" terrarium she shared with another female to a temporary enclosure made from a 8"x12" plastic food jar in an attempt to get her to stop laying on the wooden dowels holding the screen in place because it was such a pain to deconstruct &amp; replace the dowel every time I needed to remove an ooth. The entire time she was in the temporary enclosure, over 6 weeks, she refused to lay despite me putting many different choices of sticks and her favorite 1/4" dowel rods. I gave up and moved her back to her original terrarium. Within 15 minutes of returning her she laid a super long ooth, well over 2 inches in length. Poor girl was exhausted after.

Her terrarium had many plants and hiding spots but she almost always laid on the dowel rods in the lid nearest to the light, I'm guessing because it was slightly warmer there. I use full spectrum fluorescent lights, they don't get very hot but it is about 3 to 5 degrees warmer than room temp (76°F) directly under them. The temporary enclosure had no lighting so it may not have been warm enough for her liking.

I also placed the sticks and dowels vertically or at a steep angle in the temporary enclosure, none were horizontal on the lid like what she had been laying on before. The temp enclosure had plastic walls and no plants, the terrarium had glass walls and lots of live plants with big leaves (she never laid on them, rarely climbed on them.) The terrarium was on a shelf with other terrariums on other shelves but none where they would be directly in sight. The temporary enclosure was placed on a higher shelf within sight of a terrarium containing a twig mantis that was really good at hiding &amp; blending in. Maybe the temp enclosure wasn't private enough for her? 

It could be for any of those reasons or a combination of them that a ghost may refuse to lay so your female may not be eggbound. I suggest changing her environment to see if that makes any difference.


----------



## Graceface (May 10, 2019)

Yes, @Predatorhousepet my females like vertical or near vertical sticks around the same size. Changing her environment may encourage her to lay

It may be that she wants some privacy to lay, or feels it is a bad spot due to another mantis laying in the same area. I would try moving her to a new environment of appropriate size and keeping it warm and humid (low 80s and 60-70% RH)

How is she doing? Any luck yet?


----------



## FeistyMcGrudle (May 10, 2019)

I was lowering the RH temporarily because my Idolos are close to molting and I almost had a mismolt at 60% with them and my male ghosts both molted just fine at 30%. I have since upped the humidity. She is also now rejecting food on top of all this.

@Predatorhousepet, I have since added some 1/4" dowel to the tops of the enclosures after reading a post you made a while ago about your ghost constantly laying ooths on the top of your screen lid 

As it stands, she is currently in a 29 gallon aquarium, separated down the middle with a piece of plexiglass. There are sticks and twigs in a bucket of sphagnum moss, fake ivy vines, and eight 5"x1/4" wooden dowel glued to the underside of the lid of the enclosure. RH is back up to 60% and I'll have to figure out what to do with my idolos until they molt. She is also the only one on her side of the enclosure now (Ongo, the male, was in there for a while trying to mate).

Thanks again for the info everyone!


----------



## Predatorhousepet (May 10, 2019)

FeistyMcGrudle said:


> @Predatorhousepet, I have since added some 1/4" dowel to the tops of the enclosures after reading a post you made a while ago about your ghost constantly laying ooths on the top of your screen lid


Lol, that's great! Yeah two different females loved laying their ooths in that same spot no matter what I tried to coax them away from it. I have another pair of females that I plan to move from deli cups to a terrarium after their next molt, we'll see if they like that spot too. I eventually gave up trying to disuade them from laying there and instead started using a minimal amount of glue to hold the dowel rods in place so I can take them out as needed with just a little prying.


----------



## hysteresis (May 10, 2019)

My golden produced her 2nd ooth on a dowel. Didn't want to scrape her mesh again. LoL. I'll try that with all my birds.


----------



## Mantis Lady (May 11, 2019)

@FeistyMcGrudle Did your ghost lay her ooth? if not, I hope she will lay one soon.


----------



## Mantis Lady (May 11, 2019)

hysteresis said:


> My golden produced her 2nd ooth on a dowel


Gratz, good to hear she layed one again


----------



## FeistyMcGrudle (May 13, 2019)

Little Mantis said:


> @FeistyMcGrudle Did your ghost lay her ooth? if not, I hope she will lay one soon.


Still no luck


----------



## MantisGirl13 (May 13, 2019)

FeistyMcGrudle said:


> Still no luck


Don't give up on her! Change her cage around and give her sticks of every width, try higher temps and humidity.

- MantisGirl13


----------



## FeistyMcGrudle (May 13, 2019)

A little glimpse of light after posting earlier. I put her in with my youngest male who hasn't mated yet. Once I perched her on the branch, she seemed lively and even took a fly (she has eaten two in the past week). It took about an hour but he eventually mounted her and they are currently connected. I'm hoping maybe she just wasn't fertilized and this will help 'move things along'. Temp is currently sitting at 88F and RH is at 70%. Both idolos molted now so I feel much more comfortable raising that now


----------



## MantisGirl13 (May 13, 2019)

Awesome! I hope she lays soon!

- MantisGirl13


----------



## Mantis Lady (May 13, 2019)

I hope she will lay her ooth soon and it will be a fertile one.


----------



## FeistyMcGrudle (May 14, 2019)

Thank you @Little Mantis. My male was connected to her for about three hours, then i found him off of her, as far away from her as possible. She has been wandering around her new enclosure a little bit, but still no ooth.


----------



## FeistyMcGrudle (May 14, 2019)

Great news!!! I just got home and found she had finally laid an ooth (sorry for potato quality picture)! I think between changing up the enclosure, upping RH%, and pairing her with a male did the trick. Thank you again everyone!!!


----------



## hysteresis (May 14, 2019)

Full steam ahead!


----------



## MantisGirl13 (May 14, 2019)

Awesome!

- MantisGirl13


----------



## Mantis Lady (May 19, 2019)

Gratz on the ooth!


----------

