- Joined
- Feb 18, 2003
- Messages
- 2,040
My P murinus has been premoult now for a week or so, and very secretive as usual.
Doing the feeding rounds today I could just see his back leg sticking out of the burrow at a very strange angle.
Extracting him from the burrow, I found that he's somehow injured himself.
Both back legs appear crushed, as if he's fallen awkwardly. One was far more severe than the other, the leg was actually almost severed at the join between the femur and patella. An ugly black scab, encrusted with dirt, had formed, but I could see it was still leaking pretty badly.
I moved him into an ICU and had a good look - whatever happened I knew that leg had to go.
I popped him in the fridge for a few minutes (he's quite the feisty one) and read up on limb surgery in the TKG.
I placed the ICU in a larger tank, and got to work. I reasoned that it would be best to grip him by the carapace with forceps, and then use tweezers to remove the wounded leg.
Idi had other ideas - after a few seconds of being still, he reached round, grabbed the forceps and launched himself at me.
I let him calm down again, but I could see the wound was leaking quite badly.
I grabbed the tweezers and just went for it - pinched the leg at the base of the femur lightly, and it dropped off, but continued to twitch for several minutes afterwards
Here are the pictures:
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery01
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery02
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery03
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery04
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery05
He's now recovering (I hope) in an ICU.
It was a really nerve-racking and traumatic experience, and I think I can safely the same goes for the spider.
My main worry is this - what do do about this other leg? The damage is nowhere near as severe as the left leg, and I don't want to remove it unless absolutely necessary. There does not appear to be any leaking from the area, and a small dark scab has formed. He is moving the leg, but not amazingly well.
Any advice?
Doing the feeding rounds today I could just see his back leg sticking out of the burrow at a very strange angle.
Extracting him from the burrow, I found that he's somehow injured himself.
Both back legs appear crushed, as if he's fallen awkwardly. One was far more severe than the other, the leg was actually almost severed at the join between the femur and patella. An ugly black scab, encrusted with dirt, had formed, but I could see it was still leaking pretty badly.
I moved him into an ICU and had a good look - whatever happened I knew that leg had to go.
I popped him in the fridge for a few minutes (he's quite the feisty one) and read up on limb surgery in the TKG.
I placed the ICU in a larger tank, and got to work. I reasoned that it would be best to grip him by the carapace with forceps, and then use tweezers to remove the wounded leg.
Idi had other ideas - after a few seconds of being still, he reached round, grabbed the forceps and launched himself at me.
I let him calm down again, but I could see the wound was leaking quite badly.
I grabbed the tweezers and just went for it - pinched the leg at the base of the femur lightly, and it dropped off, but continued to twitch for several minutes afterwards
Here are the pictures:
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery01
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery02
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery03
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery04
http://www.donsroom.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/IdiSurgery05
He's now recovering (I hope) in an ICU.
It was a really nerve-racking and traumatic experience, and I think I can safely the same goes for the spider.
My main worry is this - what do do about this other leg? The damage is nowhere near as severe as the left leg, and I don't want to remove it unless absolutely necessary. There does not appear to be any leaking from the area, and a small dark scab has formed. He is moving the leg, but not amazingly well.
Any advice?
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