Well this sucks..

[Kyleg]

I woke up this morning to find my l3 wide arm nymph molting and stuck, she also seemed to have fallen from the side of the tank to the floor. I didn't realize that she was about to molt and forgot to mist the tank last night. I misted the tank right away to up the humidity from bone dry and went away for a bit hoping she would work her way out. Came back 40min later and she was still the same and not moving, so I used a couple of needles and gently helped get her leg and claws out of the skin. She's fully out of the skin now but pretty disfigured, legs are bowed and bent and one of her claws seems lifeless and unmovable. Worst of all she was in a hunched position trying to get out and it seems her soft exoskeleton hardened so that she is terribly hunched over. She's still alive but can't move around very well and I don't think she'll be able to eat anything like this. Is there anyway to feed a mantis other than live food, maybe some liquid mixture I could hand feed or something? would another molt fix all these deformities if she lived to it?

I have a feeling that this is probably the end for her, sucks because this was my first mantis and I was really looking forward to her reaching l4. I think I'll try to replace her with something simpler and older, like maybe an adult/sun-adult chinese mantis.

 

[Rick]

If they fall and you don't get to them right away they will be stuck like that. You could mash up her food but honestly it is a waste of time. If she is as bad as you describe there is no way she will be able to molt again. In many of these cases I feed these mantids to other mantids or to one of my herps.

 

[Andredesz]

I woke up this morning to find my l3 wide arm nymph molting and stuck, she also seemed to have fallen from the side of the tank to the floor. I didn't realize that she was about to molt and forgot to mist the tank last night. I misted the tank right away to up the humidity from bone dry and went away for a bit hoping she would work her way out. Came back 40min later and she was still the same and not moving, so I used a couple of needles and gently helped get her leg and claws out of the skin. She's fully out of the skin now but pretty disfigured, legs are bowed and bent and one of her claws seems lifeless and unmovable. Worst of all she was in a hunched position trying to get out and it seems her soft exoskeleton hardened so that she is terribly hunched over. She's still alive but can't move around very well and I don't think she'll be able to eat anything like this. Is there anyway to feed a mantis other than live food, maybe some liquid mixture I could hand feed or something? would another molt fix all these deformities if she lived to it? I have a feeling that this is probably the end for her, sucks because this was my first mantis and I was really looking forward to her reaching l4. I think I'll try to replace her with something simpler and older, like maybe an adult/sun-adult chinese mantis.

Well, I have a mantis that had a bad molt but molted okay after, she walked right out of her skin without hanging from anything. But I'm not sure how bad your guy is. Here is a link to my post about my mantis, it has photos that mat help you compare:

http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?sh...c=13153&hl=

I have found that the mantises that I hand-feed love small pieces of chicken skin, that gelatin that separates from the fat in chicken broth or juice, honey, any cricket or worm that I squeeze a bit of the juice from and introduce to their mandibles. Sometimes they are able to grab the piece of food in their arms and eat it by themselves, sometimes they can suspend the food from their mouths while they eat it down. Today several of my mantises ate the leftover shrimp legs from my lunchtime shrimp, skin and all! I just held up the food to their mouths till they nibble and get a taste, and after a while they usually grab the morsel and eat by themselves. Can you take a post a picture?

-Carol

 

[hibiscusmile]

Yea, sounds bad to me, but as Carol said, it is possible to care for it, all depends on how u feel about it. Lately I have been getting good at helping them, I t started a month ago... I found one just fallen an hadent been there long enough to get messed up, I was able to place its legs on something and it finished fine, another one was down to low in the container, so I placed it on another side slowly and the mantis was able to straighten out and finish with no harm done. This is an accomplishment due to before, no matter what I did, they didn't make it. Now some are still falling and not being able to be helped, I had two limbatas this week that both fell and neither were able to rehold on when placed, sorry to say, they did become dinner :angry:

 

[Kyleg]

I'll see if I can post some pics, but its pretty bad. Compared to your picture its quite a bit worse. Basically all her legs are useless, she has a really bad hunch and both claws seem affected by this and barely work. She can't really walk but just lays miserably on the floor of the tank with her face in the floor because of the hunch. I gave her a little drop of water and she seemed to drink when it was in her face, bit I don't think she could molt out of this on the account of her being completely immobile and crippled.

Thanks for your help though guys, I'll let you know if anything gets better, I think I'm just gonna look into getting an adult or sub-adult of something though.

p.s. how long/often does it usually take to molt again as they grow older? I have had this wide arm for a little over 2 weeks and it just molted from what I think is l3 to l4

 

[Rick]

Well, I have a mantis that had a bad molt but molted okay after, she walked right out of her skin without hanging from anything. But I'm not sure how bad your guy is. Here is a link to my post about my mantis, it has photos that mat help you compare:http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?sh...c=13153&hl=

I have found that the mantises that I hand-feed love small pieces of chicken skin, that gelatin that separates from the fat in chicken broth or juice, honey, any cricket or worm that I squeeze a bit of the juice from and introduce to their mandibles. Sometimes they are able to grab the piece of food in their arms and eat it by themselves, sometimes they can suspend the food from their mouths while they eat it down. Today several of my mantises ate the leftover shrimp legs from my lunchtime shrimp, skin and all! I just held up the food to their mouths till they nibble and get a taste, and after a while they usually grab the morsel and eat by themselves. Can you take a post a picture?

-Carol

This one isn't too bad. The other one as described sounds much worse.