my first mismolt

[Norlin]

Had my first mismolt today. Noticed my final ghost molting to L4 this morning and when I got home saw him in the same position. Basically all four legs were stuck in the old skin. I freed them but they're all stiff and completely unusable, he can flail them all about, but can't bend any joints nor get any sort of a grip with them. His back is also horribly bent, but both raptors are in fine working order as is his head. Not sure whether to feed him to another mantis or maybe glue him up and then hand feed him until his next molt, but maybe that's just too cruel?

 

[sueb4653]

poor little guy

 

[MandellaMandy123]

Oh, I hate to see you feed him to another mantis... he's so so cute. Poor little guy...

 

[eyes]

Can they even molt again in that bad of shape?

How long do these take to molt? My Chinese went from L4 to L5 in like 4 or 5 days. If it's that fast then I might try it but if it's going to be weeks or something then I'd be thinking freeze kill.

 

[Norlin]

I got this guy at L2 on 6/20/12. Molted L3 6/29/12 and then today to L4 7/13/12 so I'm guessing it'll be about two weeks until L5

 

[Norlin]

Having just fed all my mantids I wasn't going to find one hungry enough to eat him entirely and I didn't want him nibbled then discarded so he's going into the freezer now. So sad.

 

[MandellaMandy123]

Poor little thing. Rest in peace...

 

[tylersterrain]

I honestly would have like to see how his life would have finish had he stayed alive, but to each his own... I don't blame you.