Not Laying! T^T

[hibiscusmile]

From the pics she is egg bound and will not lay. Sorry, but do keep us informed. She could drop one any day, but Unlikely and the raising the heat then will not do 

any good.

 

[avn]

What does egg-bound mean?

 

[Sarah K]

What does egg-bound mean?

From Dictionary.com:

Egg-bound:  describing egg-bearing animals and birds that have difficulty passing their eggs.

My understanding is that as an adult, all female praying mantises must lay ootheca on occasion, regardless of whether or not they have mated with a male mantis. It seems that on average female praying mantises start laying ootheca around a month after molting to adulthood. After that, it seems they will continue to lay every week or so for the rest of their adult lives. The time frame of when a mantis first starts laying, and how often a mantis lays ootheca after they lay their first, seems to vary depending on the individual mantis. 

What I am curious about is how common of a problem this is in the hobby in general? I am reasonably new to this hobby myself, so I would be curious to hear from more experienced breeders, who have been doing this for years, how commonly they run into this issue. Anyone more experienced than me care to comment?

 

[avn]

So like constipated but for eggs. Well that's unfortunate! 

I hope it manages to squeeze out some eggs!!

 

[Krissim Klaw]

That female looks overly large. I've heard some people mention having had luck fasting egg-bound mantises to get them to lay. Regardless you should drastically cut down her food intake as you want to put as little added strain on her body at this point as possible.

 

[CutieCrawlersArt]

Yeah, as far as my situation goes, she still moves around and look healthy sans her big bottom. She doesn't seem too interested in food much anymore but will drink water and honey. Just gonna keep it warm for her and get her to drink lots, maybe offer her some flies every other day if the ones in her tank are finally eaten.

 

[hibiscusmile]

I see it a lot, as they are over fed an then this happens.

 

[Kdeas1]

I have a female orchid who is 6 weeks post adult molt and 3 weeks post breeding.  She has gained some mass in her abdomen but is not "WOW that looks horrible" type of girthy at this point.  She is in a plastic enclosure (def large enough with plenty of ventilation).  She has not been interested in food for the past 3 days now but other than that she acts I just don't recall her being disinterested in eating since she was molting so it concerns me a bit.  Thank you!