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Hi all,
My 2 cm Avic versi's just had its second moult (since I've owned it) last Wednesday. Unfortunatelly for reasons best known to itself, it decided to moult the wrong way up (or to put it another way, legs down). This appears to have caused a major problem! Its front two pair of legs (4 in total) have become stuck in the old exoskeleton. The rest of the legs and body have shed properly and dropped off. Two of the legs have since lost the footpad ends relieving the new legs of the old skeleton, leaving them as stumps at the 3rd or 4th knuckle. The other two legs still have the foot parts attached, in essence the new legs have 'boots' of old legs on them. Its not bleeding nor does it appear to be adversly affected as its still very active and demolished a juvenile cockroach a few minutes ago (under very close supervision). It can still use the two front shortened legs for walking, balancing and gripping prey, but obviously not to the best effect.
Am I best to leave nature to run its cause and allow the old leg sections to either fall off naturally, or as I think likely let restricted blood flow cause the ends to fall. Or am I best to intervene and try and pull of the old leg sections. I know the legs will grow back over the next few moults, and that it could possibly remoult soon to rectify the problem. So I am very reluctant to go down this route for fear of causing even worse injury - complete loss of legs or death from trauma. Does anyone have any experiences similar to provide advice?
On a lighter note, I think I've just found the perfect name for the little one - Stumpy.
Thanks
Oliver
My 2 cm Avic versi's just had its second moult (since I've owned it) last Wednesday. Unfortunatelly for reasons best known to itself, it decided to moult the wrong way up (or to put it another way, legs down). This appears to have caused a major problem! Its front two pair of legs (4 in total) have become stuck in the old exoskeleton. The rest of the legs and body have shed properly and dropped off. Two of the legs have since lost the footpad ends relieving the new legs of the old skeleton, leaving them as stumps at the 3rd or 4th knuckle. The other two legs still have the foot parts attached, in essence the new legs have 'boots' of old legs on them. Its not bleeding nor does it appear to be adversly affected as its still very active and demolished a juvenile cockroach a few minutes ago (under very close supervision). It can still use the two front shortened legs for walking, balancing and gripping prey, but obviously not to the best effect.
Am I best to leave nature to run its cause and allow the old leg sections to either fall off naturally, or as I think likely let restricted blood flow cause the ends to fall. Or am I best to intervene and try and pull of the old leg sections. I know the legs will grow back over the next few moults, and that it could possibly remoult soon to rectify the problem. So I am very reluctant to go down this route for fear of causing even worse injury - complete loss of legs or death from trauma. Does anyone have any experiences similar to provide advice?
On a lighter note, I think I've just found the perfect name for the little one - Stumpy.
Thanks
Oliver
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