Ghost seems weak

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Trollolloller

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Hello everyone, I'm still pretty new to the hobby and need help. I have one adult female and one sub-adult male ghost. The female molted just this Wednesday, and I caught her just towards the end of it in the middle of the day (they normally molt at night for me).

While she was still sub-adult, she was small enough to fit in her 32oz cup. She was hanging upside down from the foam plug on the lid, and mid-molt I saw her head pressed flat against the bottom of the cup like her head was holding her up. So I panicked and did what I thought was best at the time (in hind sight, I should have just pulled the plug up a bit to give her space from the bottom). I attempted to move her to a larger container and as I moved her, she slipped out of her skin and finished molting, so I thought she was good to walk around her new container and dry out. Instead, she was very very weak, with her legs unable to hold her up and her face pressed against the humidity foam. I didn't know at the time that the best thing would have been to, after attempting to move her, put her against the top of the container to hang upside down to dry properly. She was too weak for me to even think she could hang on her own. I made the mistake of neglecting the humidity levels, and just then sprayed her after I took her out.

In her new cup, if i nudged her along gently with my finger or blew on her, she'd move a bit and once or twice tried climbing up the side of the container, only to fall down on her back. I took her out and hand fed her some water droplets, but no food. It took her awhile to take the water. I think after that I set her back up on her cup lid to hang upside down, which she looked barely able to do.

I checked on her often until the next day she was looking better. She looked more stable on the lid, and I was able to hand feed her three D. Hydei flies. She had enough strength to try swatting the tweezers from her face, so she's doing better. I put a bunch of flies in her container, but I haven't seen her attempt to catch anything on her own. I've been monitoring her since then, and holding her a couple times a day, and I'm gonna try hand feeding her some more flies or maybe even a cicket if I have any small enough (have adult crickets for beardies).

I thought she would have made more of a recovery by now than she has, but at least she's ok. Still hasn't eaten any flies on her own, but she looks much better hanging upside down on her lid, and often looks around at moving things out of curiosity, but she still has a little trouble keeping her belly and head off the floor when upright. The only visible deformity from the molt is the 1 of the 4 wings is bent halfway down. Other than that, any damage she may have taken from the molt (forgot to mention she fell as I tried moving her) must be internal. All her legs look fine and shaped properly.

I desperately want to mate my two ghosts, will she still be ok to mate? That's my biggest concern, since she looks like she's gonna ok. 20150509_100949.jpg20150509_101046.jpg

 
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You seem to have done the best you can to resolve the issue, and while I think she will require a lot of care to help her regain her strength (she may not be fully functional), she should be still able to mate and probably produce ootheca. My mantis became quite crippled and damaged from her molt, but I was able to mate her with my male easily.

Keep on handfeeding her for now and I wish you all the best with breeding her in the future :)

 
Thank you for the input. I hand fed her ten headless Hydei flies (way too small for her, didn't seem to change her girth at all) then a headless cricket. She ate as much of the cricket as she wanted then dropped it. She looks so much better now and is looking better when walking upright. She's gonna be fine.

 
instead of fruit flies, get some meal worms. Cut thier head off and hold the gooey end to her mouth. She should be able to hold it fine on her ownn. Give her honey too. That will give her more energy. Try moths too.

 

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