Hottentotta hottentotta

by yames Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:30 am

This one is a little sad and I'm not really too sure I should even post it but I wonder if anyone else has seen anything like this. I got a SCORPION EMERGENCY case with this little girl. She had molted and wasn't up to taking food yet but my seller had to go away for 6 weeks. In is absence the person he had looking over his extensive spider and scorpion collection completely ignored her. She is displaying very unnatural movements. Circling and backing up onto and over things. like her legs are just rowing the sand instead of walking. I've eye dropper-ed water onto her chelicera to try to rehydrate her and she seems a bit less twitchy but not anywhere near normal. I ground up a pin head cricket and dabbed it onto her chelicera and although it looked like she chewed a bit eventually her twitching and dragging in the substrate dislodged it.

Any thoughts about how I should proceed?

Hottentotta hottentotta 7_new_16

by yames Sun Nov 03, 2013 9:11 pm

After watering her by eye dropper every day and grinding up a cricket and slowly but firmly helping to keep it against her chelicerae 3 times over the last week I wasn't sure if I was having much success. She finally pooped yesterday morning and although it made a rock hard ball at her anus which would have impacted her I was feeling optimistic. I cleaned the poop with a moistened q-tip which took a while and left her alone for the day. Last night I put a small pre beat up cricket in her enclosure and I'm proud to say she ate every last scrap of it herself after having to hunt it down. Today she is far less twitchy and shaky on her feet. I think I've nursed her back to health. Now I just need to wait and see if she molts again or not and whether the dehydration and emaciation has caused any permanent damage to her reproductive system. Fingers crossed.