My Emp Finally Molted, When Should I Feed It ??

hello everyone, i was doing tank maintenence, and i noticed a peice of shedded skin near the water dish, so i started looking for the scorpion, i picked up on of the hides and there was the shed from its stinger, and a leg, and some other peices....then i saw the scorpion in its burrow, but i dont know when to feed them, today was schedualled to get crickets, but i dont know if i should feed them yet , i dont know when the scorion molted, all i could see was its claws sticking out of its burrow and they had a greenish color to them, so i was wondering if i should wait a few days before feeding ????

You could just crush the cricks head

i dont want to do that becuase ive never done it before , i dont know how, ill probably kill the crickets

If your scorpion is hungry, it will eat it, dead or alive. When my slings was with there mother, i only feed them headcrushed.

well i dont know if the scorpions armor has hardened yet, thats what im trying to figure out, i mean he looked pretty solid, but had a green tint to him

If you wanna feed him now, then just crush the cricks head completely. Then your scorp is safe

i got another look at the emp, its only green if its under light, he had his belly up against the glass and i couldnt really see the pectines that well, everything on his belly still looked soft

well ive never head crushed crickets before thats why im not ready to do that, but if i wait like 2 days to feed them do u think the emp will be better by then ???? emps are usually pretty good together i dont c why one of the emps will start munching on the molted one, they all sleep together in the same burrow, why would one eat his friend????

None of my big scorps has molted yet since i got them, so i cant really help you with that one m8. I guess they freshly molted scorps are too tempting sometimes! I have spare boxes and tanks for my scorps, so if one of them molts, i can quarantine it. My Heterometrus´ will probably eat each other with pleasure. But they are alsoe more aggressive than Imps.
-With the cricks, one time must be the first there is nothing dangerous about it. its just a safe way to feed your freshly molted scorps and slings.

Head crushing a cricket is disturbing the first couple dozen times, and then it really does get better. I don't know if you've ever been chomped on by a cricket, but it can really hurt! After that happened I felt a whole lot less bad about head crushing and a whole lot more safe about what I was giving to potential molters. (Crickets are evil. I stand by that 100%.)

And head-crushing will kill them immediately so they aren't feeling any pain even though their muscles continue to move, so it is a kind way to feed them off. If you do accidentally crush any part of them then just make sure to get their head on the next hit to put them out of their misery. It's still a very quick death.

I head crushed until my males were at 4i for safety since they were constantly molting and they were my first emps so I needed them to be safe. I have no qualms now about tonging up some head crushed crickets, and it has made me a really good aim with tongs and tweezers which has come in very hand for other emergencies.

If you're going by the headcrushed route, just make sure you don't leave any uneaten crix in the tank for longer than 24h, as decomposing crix and the high moisture coupled with warm temps is the perfecgt scenario for a mite infestation.

If you can see the scorpion in a blacklight that means it's exo skeleton is hard enough to chow.

well i talked to ken the bug guy and he said wait 3 more like 5 days , i was planning on feeding them tomorow thats 5 days, regualar crickets , not head crushed, but then today i see another molt from a different emp, im feeding them tomroow becuase its been 15 days since feeding last, normally its every 10 days, and i dont want the other emps eating the molter, i dont know what im going to do as far as head crusheing them, do they die after they get head crushed ???????

i guess i could put on a thin pair of garden gloves and head crush the crickets, but will the crickets still walk around for a few hours? becuase the emps arent going to go after a dead cricket

If you crush the mushroom nerve which is equivalent to an insect brain they will die instantly. If you only damage the outside of the head it will move around like normal. You don't need garden gloves. Just use your bare fingers silly.

Do your emps take food from hemostats or your fingers???

see i dont think i know how to head crush them properly i will probably kill every cricket lol, maybe i should wait 3 days before feeding them, i dont know what hemostats are but once in a while i used to feed one or two with tongs a few months ago, but not recently becuase i cant they run into there burrow as soon as they feel the lid to there tank open. i was considering removeing the molter and puting it in its own tank for a few days but i dont want to destroy there burrows.

On average, it is "safe" to offer food for the scorpion 7-10 days AFTER the date it has recently molted.

Your scorpion will unlikely be starved to death as long as you feed it within 14 day from the date it molted (provided that the husbandry you provide is correct)

Well my obvious prediction to this is that once the scorpion molts or sheds w/e their skin is still in the process of hardening and they know that so they avoid hunting until their armor is hardened enough to protect itself from a prey that is willing to fight for it's life.

Menes™ wrote:

Well my obvious prediction to this is that once the scorpion molts or sheds w/e their skin is still in the process of hardening and they know that so they avoid hunting until their armor is hardened enough to protect itself from a prey that is willing to fight for it's life.

Basically, as much as they wish to, they can't "dissect" their prey with chelierae that is soft.

The usual term used for scorpion is molt/moult, not shed.

[HOW TO] "Common words" in the Hobby