dead baby ...but why?

i found one of my 30 baby hadogenes paucidens dead. it appeared quite thin and relatively small, it was in with two others, one of which also looks quite thin but the other is quite porky. could the death have been because of starvation, although i do provide many pinheads or do scorpions just produce runts which are less likely to survive?

My guess would be natural selection. alot of scorplings seem to die for no apparent reason, these are most likely the weak, smaller ones. in a way it's better as it ensures that only the larger, healthier scorpions survive.

I found when i was rearing mine that when one of the three start getting bigger than it's siblings, it is time to move it to it's own tub to prevent it from eating it's siblings.
Once the little piggy has been removed it will give the smaller of the group chance to get food. In this situation i would also put in a pre killed cricket with the smaller siblings to allow them to have an easy meal

It is a case of survival of the fittest basically. It sounds like it was more than likely starvation that caused the death.

I also found with mine that after the first shed their growth rates varied quite a lot, some ate all they could and others were a bit slow to get food.

It does mean keeping an extra eye on them but it's worth it to get a good percentage to 3i. By then they should make it to adulthood fine.

The birth to 3i bit seems to be really hard to get them to survive, but a bit of tlc should do the trick

i have now separated all of them and will be keeping a closer eye on the feeding regimes.
it makes me feel very sad to think of it starving when it could have easily been avoided with a little more care

but what i don't understand is why it would die flat on its back.

dont kick yourself about it, this can also happen when they are on their own as well.
It's natures way unfortunately, just notch it up on experience. Now you have separated them they will have more of a chance to grow.

I had mine in 3's, then 2's them eventually one in their own tub. and the system seemed to work well.

keep us up to date i love hearing about this sp

Don't beat yourself up; this species is almost as notoriously hard to rear as H. arizonensis. I started with 11 2I, now I have one 2I and one 3I.

It just happens.