Dealing with a bad molt

[Thrillhouse]

There might be a resource here already, but we need something easily available for how to deal with bad molts.

People ask about it all the time, but I never had to personally deal with one, until this morning. One of my orchids chose a pretty poor spot to molt over the night, and I came down to see her mostly successfully molted, but barely moving on the bottom of her habitat.

I tried to lift her up so she could grab onto a limb, but she seemed really weak and wouldn't grip. So after ten minutes of that, and a fear that handling her too much would be worse, I laid her back down, made sure the humidity was good, and left for work. Not sure what to expect, but I'm not too optimistic.

Is there something better I could have done? 

 

[crabbypatty]

I've never had a bad molt, but I've been advised to place them extremely gently on their lid so the can hang and dry properly. Their legs might end up bent and deformed if placed at bottom. I had someone recently post about having a bad molt on my Facebook mantis page, it was the final molt, it started molting while on the ground. They placed it on the lid a awhile after it had molted, so it survived with bent legs and wings. Had they put it up sooner it might've straightened out its legs a bit better but they did their best. Good luck with your mantis. 

 

[MantisRCool]

If it cant holt onto the top, try to put it on like a lot of sticks (i had a paradoxa who fell out of her molt i put her by her raptors on sticks and put like supporting sticks for her legs but she was fine in the end). Like hang it by the raptors, if the legs are weak the raptors should still hold. And where the legs are, put loads of thin sticks or something so that it could grab it when the legs are less soft. Also if u got a photo it would help. And most important, manipulate is as gently as possible

 

[Thrillhouse]

Well, I'm not sure what to do now.

I got home after work expecting it to be dead, but it was still kicking. It's missing one left back leg, and the foot of the other back leg. It's head was still attached to its raptors, and after I cut the molted chitin and separated its head from its raptors, it was free to chew at the rest of the molted skin that hadn't shed. Unfortunately, it can't sit up right, and its raptors didn't finish molting, so they're pretty useless. It also has part of its face molt stuck on its antenna. I want to cut it out, but I don't want to cut its antenna.

So, I think the poor guy is pretty much a goner, but I've been hand feeding it fruit flies, since it's still pretty small, maybe L3 or 4, and if it can manage to pull through I'm fine with hand feeding it. I just don't know how it will manage to molt again in its condition. Really not sure what to do, but if it continues to eat, I don't want to freeze it. It may still have enough molts to recover, if it can make it through this.

 

[crabbypatty]

Can it still hang? I've had one nymph missmolt and I had to cut away the antenna and raptor tips. She's now a grown adult with one short antenna, she regrew her raptors just fine. I've never had a molt where they fall and I need to grab their soft bodies. I've always come home to already missmolted dry ones. I've only had one die though. I say that if it can hang you should give it a chance. 

 

[Thrillhouse]

I don't think so right now. I'll have to just keep watch and check in the morning.

 

[MantisRCool]

If its head and raptors got stuck in the molt its very very low chance of survival. I have had molts like this and usually they don't make it through next molt either. I wish u good luck, maybe this one will be the lucky one. 

 

[cwebster]

Am wishing your mantis the best. Molting is such a hard time.

 

[Serle]

Thrillhouse  , I have to agree with cwebster the outlook isn't brilliant .  When they have their head askew it seems there is no recovery , I nursed a tenodera for 9 days , hand feeding trying different forms of traction , he just wouldn't improve .... sorry .... Serle