Centipeder
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2013
- Messages
- 15
Hi, I'm new here although I joined this forum and looked around before purchasing my first centipede. I'll give you guys a little back-story before I get into what happened. I'm a beginner centipede owner and this was actually my first actual pet giant centipede, after wanting to own one for most of my life. I was excited to find the website backwaterreptiles and saw that I can purchase from there so did my research and got what I needed before making the purchase.
This was all about a month ago, and have had him since then. I keep him in one of those containers meant for mouses/insects/reptiles and on Eco Earth substrate that I bought from the pet shop. I also make sure to rather keep water in a small water dish and am sure to mist (a section) of substrate every so often (maybe every 4-5 days). For the first week or two I would feed him crickets that I bought at the pet shop; i would feed him every other night. And for the last week and a half I have been feeding him meal worms.
now just today about 40 minutes ago, out of nowhere he ran straight out of his little house I gave him and started being VERY active. The most active I've ever seen him act actually. He ran out and would try to crawl up the sides of the container and would be very jumpy, it was like he was going kind of crazy (or something). My girlfriend and I were fascinated at how active he was being and watched him for a little while before deciding maybe we should feed him. We tried for the next half hour and he wouldn't attack the meal worms like he usually would, he would just walk around his container trying to crawl up the sides. It was then when he started calming down and he would move slower and slower and would move in very...weird stutters and would curl his body up backwards every so often and then just walk around slowly again.
As I was watching him I could tell something was up because of the way he was moving in such an odd way. It then happened that he would curl his head in and got very stiff...He tensely curled and then went limp but really stiff....We thought we just watched him die...we poked and proded him with chopsticks to try and see if he was still alive but he would only twitch a little every now and then. We waited and assumed he just died, but after about 7-10 minutes we saw him get up again and walk slowly around and try to (weakly) climb up the sides again and then he would just stop and "die" again. He's done this one more time after that and now he hasn't moved for the last 15 minutes. Now, whenever I blow into the container, he responds by moving his legs and walking around just a little but he's very weak.. The following video is the way he was acting the last time before he went limp again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3XaMIoacQY
If you guys can give me any advice at what caused this and why this happened I would appreciate it a lot. I have chosen to transform the grieving I would be doing into finding out what went wrong and how to prevent this when I end up getting a new centipede. A little more information:
I live in San Francisco (gets kind of cold), and sometimes we put this roach pesticide DuPont Advion Roach gell that we use to kill roaches that come around our apartment building (the pesticide has to be eaten by the roaches, no smell or spray). I do remember once that I found a roach and without thinking about it, put it in his container that he may or may not have eaten. Could it be possible that he ate a roach that just before ate the pesticide and was dying which ended up leading to his death? Also, I'm not sure if..maybe he could be molting? I hope it's the latter although I doubt.
Sorry for the long wall of text, I'm just a little flabbergasted that this just happened.
-Update-
we've been poking him and he's moving again though very weakly..Not sure weather to keep him moving or to leave him alone.
This was all about a month ago, and have had him since then. I keep him in one of those containers meant for mouses/insects/reptiles and on Eco Earth substrate that I bought from the pet shop. I also make sure to rather keep water in a small water dish and am sure to mist (a section) of substrate every so often (maybe every 4-5 days). For the first week or two I would feed him crickets that I bought at the pet shop; i would feed him every other night. And for the last week and a half I have been feeding him meal worms.
now just today about 40 minutes ago, out of nowhere he ran straight out of his little house I gave him and started being VERY active. The most active I've ever seen him act actually. He ran out and would try to crawl up the sides of the container and would be very jumpy, it was like he was going kind of crazy (or something). My girlfriend and I were fascinated at how active he was being and watched him for a little while before deciding maybe we should feed him. We tried for the next half hour and he wouldn't attack the meal worms like he usually would, he would just walk around his container trying to crawl up the sides. It was then when he started calming down and he would move slower and slower and would move in very...weird stutters and would curl his body up backwards every so often and then just walk around slowly again.
As I was watching him I could tell something was up because of the way he was moving in such an odd way. It then happened that he would curl his head in and got very stiff...He tensely curled and then went limp but really stiff....We thought we just watched him die...we poked and proded him with chopsticks to try and see if he was still alive but he would only twitch a little every now and then. We waited and assumed he just died, but after about 7-10 minutes we saw him get up again and walk slowly around and try to (weakly) climb up the sides again and then he would just stop and "die" again. He's done this one more time after that and now he hasn't moved for the last 15 minutes. Now, whenever I blow into the container, he responds by moving his legs and walking around just a little but he's very weak.. The following video is the way he was acting the last time before he went limp again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3XaMIoacQY
If you guys can give me any advice at what caused this and why this happened I would appreciate it a lot. I have chosen to transform the grieving I would be doing into finding out what went wrong and how to prevent this when I end up getting a new centipede. A little more information:
I live in San Francisco (gets kind of cold), and sometimes we put this roach pesticide DuPont Advion Roach gell that we use to kill roaches that come around our apartment building (the pesticide has to be eaten by the roaches, no smell or spray). I do remember once that I found a roach and without thinking about it, put it in his container that he may or may not have eaten. Could it be possible that he ate a roach that just before ate the pesticide and was dying which ended up leading to his death? Also, I'm not sure if..maybe he could be molting? I hope it's the latter although I doubt.
Sorry for the long wall of text, I'm just a little flabbergasted that this just happened.
-Update-
we've been poking him and he's moving again though very weakly..Not sure weather to keep him moving or to leave him alone.
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