Babies & Substrate

I purchased my first emperor about 4 months ago from the local pet store. I started off with the wrong substrate (due in part to lack of advice/knowledge from the store owner, as well as lack of research on my part). Fast forward to today, when I noticed the first few babies crawling onto her back. Now my dilemma/question: While I do have a suitable cave/retreat for my scorpion, she has no ability to burrow in the cypress bedding (excess from a new bag from my python's last cage cleaning). My assumption is regardless of the need for renovation, it would be best to leave her enclosure be until the babies are ready to be separated. Is that correct, or is there something else I should be doing that would not affect the birth and/or stress her out? I did add some peat/potting soil mix to the side of the aquarium she's not on, for lack of a better idea and wanting to do something that wouldn't disturb her.

I would leave her alone not to stress her, but what you can do is maybe change one side of her enclosure completely to peat or whatever substrate is best and leave a hide on that side as well. When you see her move to the other side change the rest of the enclosure.

Thanks for the info. The setup I've had her in (needs some changing once it's safe to move her/them) is a 10 gallon with a partially covered screen top. I have a faux rock that has an entrance/exit on either side, which I now realize should be set up more like a burrow. I placed some peat/soil mixture against one side of the tank, which extends to one "entrance" of the rock, and she's moved herself into the entrance near the soil. I figured I'd wait another day or two before adding water to avoid stressing her. From what I've read here, am I right that it's unnecessary to feed until after the babies' first molt, and/or whenever they start wandering off on their own? Scorpions are a bit new to me, most of my collection's been made made up of reptiles and tarantulas at one time or another. Anyways, thanks for the help/advice!

Fhoulan wrote:

From what I've read here, am I right that it's unnecessary to feed until after the babies' first molt, and/or whenever they start wandering off on their own?

Thats right.
A safe estimate of when to start offering food would be 3-7 days AFTER the scorplings had dismounted from their mom's back, on their own.

Let us know if you have further queries.

Btw, you are encouraged to post a self-intro. Give others a chance to know you

Thanks for the heads up, in all my frantic searching to make sure I didn't do anything detrimental to the new mom's well-being, I was oblivious to my message box so I've added a belated intro. I appreciate all the help, she and the babies appear to be doing quite well so far. They've begun moving about a bit more on her back, so I'm hoping that may be a sign that they're getting closer to their first molt (perhaps wishful thinking). I plan on taking and posting a few pics once the babies are out and about, but the location of her tank at the moment makes it difficult and I don't want to do anything to stress them out.

Fhoulan wrote:

Thanks for the heads up, in all my frantic searching to make sure I didn't do anything detrimental to the new mom's well-being, I was oblivious to my message box so I've added a belated intro. I appreciate all the help, she and the babies appear to be doing quite well so far. They've begun moving about a bit more on her back, so I'm hoping that may be a sign that they're getting closer to their first molt (perhaps wishful thinking). I plan on taking and posting a few pics once the babies are out and about, but the location of her tank at the moment makes it difficult and I don't want to do anything to stress them out.

No worries.
It's not wishful thinking, it's been about 7 days right? It's about time they reach 2.instar.
Yep, try not stress her out by viewing if it's really out of the convenience of looking through the glass tank.

When the mom is stressed and gets defensive, sometimes she might accidentally grab one or two of her kids when they ran pass her chela. However, the mom is usually quick to realize that it's NOT FOOD and releases them quickly
But then.. why risk it? You are doing the right thing

So it's been a couple weeks and the babies are at the point where they've just begun wandering about the tank without mom. With the exception of a single brave little one, they only wander outside the hide for a few moments before returning, so I'm unsure how many are still around. I've thrown in about a cricket a day for the past 3 days, and mom always kills it and (I hope) shares with babies (saw a few munching on a big one while it was in her mouth once). A couple questions:

1) Is it safe to lift the hide/remodel the tank to have a more suitable substrate yet, or will it still place babies in danger of mom freaking and eating them?

2) I took the brave one out earlier this evening...mostly because he's been at the water dish drinking/chillin' (which is on the other side of the tank from mom) all day so I wasn't worried about bugging mom and just cuz I've been dying to hold one of the cuties since they were born. This may be a dumb question but I didn't want to risk it - I have him in a separate tank at the moment because I didn't know if (like birds) the mom would detect my scent on baby and perhaps eat/kill him because of it? I plan on taking the opportunity to raise them together, so I would like to return the youngster to the tank with the rest if it's safe to do so.

Fhoulan wrote:

Is it safe to lift the hide/remodel the tank to have a more suitable substrate yet, or will it still place babies in danger of mom freaking and eating them?

No worries, it usually take quite abit of stress to push a loving mom off the limits. If you have made up your mind to re-model the tank, be decisive in your actions and the stress factor will be greatly reduced.

1. Separate the mom out first in a temporaily container and then gather all the wondering kids into another.
2. Proceed to re-do up the original tank
3. Once the tank is nicely done-up, return all the 2.instar scorplings back first and then their mom (if you decide to raise them all up as a family)

Fhoulan wrote:

I didn't know if (like birds) the mom would detect my scent on baby and perhaps eat/kill him because of it?

No it does not happens in scorpion, at least, not that i've heard of.
Scorpions pick up vibrations that differentiates e.g. enemies, families and preys.. not scent.

Fhoulan wrote:

I plan on taking the opportunity to raise them together, so I would like to return the youngster to the tank with the rest if it's safe to do so.

You can return the scorpling anytime, just place in somewhere outside of their burrow and the little "guy" will find his way back to the group.

First of all, thanks so much for all of your help so far GS! So...just a few more questions for the moment lol: I read (most of) your forest scorpion guide, and you recommend at least one hide per specimen. Does that apply to each of the 2. instar scorplings as well? And if so, I would imagine it should/can be proportionate to their size? As in, I don't need to have their hides as large as mom's hide? At the moment, they're in a 10 gallon because I didn't anticipate needing more room when I purchased mom. Will that be sufficient for a while, or should I get a larger one in the (very near) future?

Lastly, does anyone have feedback on boxelder bugs as feeders? Nutritional content for example? I've searched and searched the web, and every (reliable) source seems to state that they're in no way toxic. All of the sites are focused on them as pests though, so I've been unable to find anything about them as potential feeders. I was just curious because we have them all outside the house in abundance this time of year so it would be a very convenient/plentiful food source (or snack if their nutritional content isn't the most ideal, as I've read regarding mealworms). If it's inadvisable, no worries, I'll stick to crickets.

the babies will prly all huddle together just put a few things in there so they can hide if they feel the need all our babies huddle together most of the time a few have gone off and made their own burrows, with ours as the space was limited we decided to remove mum and just leave the babies alltogether.

not sure what boxelder bugs are, but personally i would stick to captive breed feeders that way you know the are good for your little guys

Let me jump in and give GS a breather..

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you recommend at least one hide per specimen. Does that apply to each of the 2. instar scorplings as well?

Not if you are housing them together as a so called family unit..Just put in plenty of pieces of bark and you'll find that they'll share hides in groups.

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And if so, I would imagine it should/can be proportionate to their size? As in, I don't need to have their hides as large as mom's hide?

Hides don't have to be hides parse .. A hide is simply somewhere a scorpion can "hide" itself. So as i mentioned earlier a few decent slabs of bark laying on the substrate will suffice as hides for the young..Just as long as they can get under the bark then that will be fine.

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At the moment, they're in a 10 gallon because I didn't anticipate needing more room when I purchased mom. Will that be sufficient for a while, or should I get a larger one in the (very near) future?

I can't really picture how big a 10 gallon container is but at the end of the day it's not volume so much that is important..it's floor space. In my mind an adult emp with a brood of instar 2's that are to be housed as one family should have floor space equivalent to approx 2 foot by 2 foot or maybe a touch less. Slabs of bark should cover maybe 80% of the floor space for optimal hiding places for all scorps.

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Lastly, does anyone have feedback on boxelder bugs as feeders?

I can't help you with nutritional information but theoretically they should be able to eat them although...and this is something you should always bear in mind...Bugs collected from the wild could possibly carry diseases/parasites or have traces of insecticides or pesticides on them. For this reason alone it's always best to get your feeders from reliable sources and not bother with wild caught feeders...

Great detailed advice given by Bex & Den.
I'm more concern on feeding "wild" feeder even though it's a tempatation Not to, since they are readily available. Ultimately, we should place their health concern above convenience whenever possible.

Do keep us updated on the scorplings growth

Den, some common aquarium sizes available in the US include:

10 gallon: 12"W x 20"L x 10"H

20 gallon tall: 12"W x 24"L x 16"H

20 gallon long: 12"W x 30"L x 13"H

Thanks for the feedback/advice! I removed mom and babies without much hassle, remodeled the tank, and picked up some pinheads from the pet store. You were right on about them huddling together Bex, they were so packed in I didn't think there were half as many as I counted out. Didn't think to nab any pics of babies, but there are 12 healthy-looking youngsters. I did take a few pics of the new setup, in varying stages. I'll try and upload them later, it doesn't seem to want to work from my phone.

Weird question...does mama have some place to "store" food directly under her mouth? I fed Cleopatra(mama) a medium-sized cricket yesterday. Today, I threw in about 6 pinheads for the babies, and she's grabbed about 4 so far and keeps trying for more. Thing is, when I look at her face-on, I can see them all sticking out from the bottom of her mouth. I was wondering if she's going to bring them in for babies, or if she's just being a glutton. The babies try and come out when they sense the crickets, but Cleo goes after them right away and the little ones run back into the burrow.

Fhoulan wrote:

Weird question...does mama have some place to "store" food directly under her mouth? I fed Cleopatra(mama) a medium-sized cricket yesterday. Today, I threw in about 6 pinheads for the babies, and she's grabbed about 4 so far and keeps trying for more. Thing is, when I look at her face-on, I can see them all sticking out from the bottom of her mouth. I was wondering if she's going to bring them in for babies, or if she's just being a glutton. The babies try and come out when they sense the crickets, but Cleo goes after them right away and the little ones run back into the burrow.

Even for a regular scorpion, it is normal for them to grab hold of a couple "bite-sized" feeders if they are hungry.
Even if they are presented with regular sized feeders, a hungry scorpion can take on one in it's mouth and two more in each of the chela.

A scorpion will usually eat what they can and only stop when they are not hungry, preparing for a molt, preparing to deliver a brood or if they are sick e.g.dehydrated (of cos, they might be other reasons as well), hence it important for keepers to regular healthy feeding intervals under captive conditions.

As for a scorpion mom, i believe it is the natural instinct of her to "disable" any possible threats that might harm her kids.

I do not call it "a place that stores food" as it is not unheard of that they would hold on to the disabled preys in their "mouth" while the little kids tear parts away of the feeder from below.

Perfectly normal and heart warming imo