Emperor Birthing Emergency

Mathayus

Arachnosquire
Joined
Nov 17, 2010
Messages
99
Monday, my 6" Emperor gave birth. Everything appeared well, until I checked on her today and noticed that one of her babies was not fully delivered and it's tail is still inside the mother, with the rest of its body hanging out of the genital aperture. The mother is not attempting to help it through with her legs, as it would do while birthing. It is simply dragging it along underneath her.

The baby is still alive and seems to be perfectly formed, but I'm obviously concerned that this will cause problems. Anyone have any advice on remedying this problem? My first instinct was to gently get her out and see if I could carefully remove it with forceps, though I fear that would harm both animals involved. Ideas?

All other babies are alive ad well and are on the mothers back, like normal. It seems to be a brood of around 10-15.

This is my third litter of scorpions born, but all the others went perfectly. (Hottentotta hottentotta, Centruroides gracilis) The humidity was not where it should've been, which is likely the reason for this complication. I have raised the humidity and the temperature, I simply need a way to fix this problem.
 

Formerphobe

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Feb 27, 2011
Messages
2,336
Wow. Sounds like you're between the proverbial rock and a hard place... Not only is there concern to do damage to baby and mama, but the stress of handling her could cause her to cannibalize the other babies. I wonder if you could use a Q-tip, or better yet, a longer cotton tipped applicator or fine paint brush to apply glycerine around the baby to sort of lube things up. If a little lubrication doesn't help, you may be forced to use forceps to gently extricate the baby and hope there hasn't been damage to the mama.

Hopefully someone will be along that has been through this and can offer better advise...
 

KDiiX

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jul 18, 2012
Messages
453
Any new information about this? Does the baby still stuck into the mother. Never heard of any case where similar things happened so it would be interesting to keep us up to date ;-)
 

Mathayus

Arachnosquire
Joined
Nov 17, 2010
Messages
99
Sorry, internet's been out. I was able to take the mother out and I gently pulled the baby off the bottom. He came off surprisingly easy, and he was quite malformed from the middle of the mesosoma back. I'm assuming that he was not actually partial born, but more stuck onto the mother's underside immediately after birth. A few days afterward, all seems back to normal. All the babies look healthy, and the mother is acting normal.
 

KDiiX

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jul 18, 2012
Messages
453
Wow that's sounds like pretty good news. Next step would be interesting if you might get problems with the next birth. But this US nothing that could be cleared over night :-D
 
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