Scorpion Feeding Question

I have a dune scorpion. And I'm new to scorpions so I have a few questions.

-How are you able to feed a cricket drumstick to scorplings? I thought they ignore food that don't move.

-According to lllreptile, my dune scorpion is about 1 year old. I can't tell what stage he is in or if he's a full adult now.

-How eager are they to eat? Mines is kind of shy. And how do I encourage it to not be shy so I can see it eat? It took an entire day for the cricket to vanish without a trace, and I didn't even get to see it. How were you able to catch so many scorplings eating at the moment with a camera? What did you do?

-How do I increase its appetite?

Skroar wrote:

I have a dune scorpion. And I'm new to scorpions so I have a few questions.

Great choice in scorps, they're quite interesting.

Quote :

-How are you able to feed a cricket drumstick to scorplings? I thought they ignore food that don't move.

While that's mostly true, scorpions, particularly younger individuals will not turn crushed, or parts of crickets. They will realize it's food when they come into contact with it. Also, mother scorpions will actually kill and crush prey items and feed them to their young...it's not too far if a stretch for us to do the same.

Quote :

-According to lllreptile, my dune scorpion is about 1 year old. I can't tell what stage he is in or if he's a full adult now.

Any chance you could post pics of it next to a ruler?

Quote :

-How eager are they to eat? Mines is kind of shy. And how do I encourage it to not be shy so I can see it eat? It took an entire day for the cricket to vanish without a trace, and I didn't even get to see it. How were you able to catch so many scorplings eating at the moment with a camera? What did you do?

It depends on the species and individual...but in general most scorpions are pretty shy. Patience is the key.

Quote :

-How do I increase its appetite?

Raising the temperature will increase it's metabolism, which in turn will increase it's appetite.

desert scorpions are never shy when it comes to feeding. if you want, you can powerfeed it and when it gets fat enough you can withhold feeding altogether and wait til it slims down again

@ Skroar...did you by chance read the caresheet for this species yet? https://scorpionforum.darkbb.com/t911-smeringurus-mesaensis-care

Yeah, that was exactly one of the several caresheets I looked at before choosing a scorpion.

I'll try to get a picture of it up, but I need a way to upload it from my iphone.

Here they are:

[img][/img]



Oh and btw, the warm shelter is about 90 F, and outside is about 80 F. Where he is in the picture right now is about 80 F.

I got him about a week ago.

IGNORE the date on the pictures, lol. I just didn't change the date and time on dusty, old camera.

If by shelter you mean its hide, you may want that to be cooler than the rest of the enclosure. Or you can keep two hides, one on the cooler side and one on the warmer side.

In nature, desert scorpions' scrapes and burrows are cooler than the sun-beaten surface sand/soil, and they will remain there during the heat of the day and come out/hunt/become active during the cooler nocturnal hours.

vespers wrote:

If by shelter you mean its hide, you may want that to be cooler than the rest of the enclosure. Or you can keep two hides, one on the cooler side and one on the warmer side.

In nature, desert scorpions' scrapes and burrows are cooler than the sun-beaten surface sand/soil, and they will remain there during the heat of the day and come out/hunt/become active during the cooler nocturnal hours.

+1.

And yeah, your scorp is definitely a juvenile (no idea on the instar though) so expect some molts in the future.

So, how do I coax him out of his shy feeding habits? He does not eat very aggressively at all. He sometimes even scurry away from small crickets that bump into him.

Is he shy because he is new? I just got him about a week ago.

I have shifted his shelter over to the cool side to accommodate for this habit. I used to put it right in the middle of the temperature gradient.

Well, you could try not feeding him for an extra week or so to increase hunger and then feed when it's fairly dark. Scorpions are not overly bothered by red light, so you could try observing it at night using that.

Try Scorpion19981000's suggestions; beyond that I'm not sure what to tell you. I fed my S. mesaensis this afternoon...its a fairly aggressive feeder. With standard room lights on the cricket had about 4 or 5 seconds between being introduced into the enclosure, and being captured/stung. It usually prefers to then drag the prey item beneath a chunk of cork bark though to devour it.

Also juvs might not eat when it's close to molting. Just so you can keep that in mind.

Ok. How can I tell if he's close to molting? Does he look like he's going to molt from the pictures?

I'll be sure to get him to be more hungry.

pre molt

Post molt

Your scorp looks like he's getting there but I would recommend just not feeding him for a while if you want to see it eat. I have a H.judaicus that eats everything I give it but never in front of me. I just wake up in the morning with a missing cricket and a fat scorpion.

How well do scorpions detect their prey?

I have a calci worm in a dish deep in the sand. It's deep enough so that he can climb into it. It's sort of like a pit.

Or should I just let the worm try to bury into the sand, and have him chase after it?

It's been about a week now. I figure that he's hungry, but he's just standing there right next to the dish. And the room is totally dark except for the light from this laptop. I don't know if the issue is that he can't detect it or if he's not hungry right now.

Well, not I feel bad and guilty. I nearly knocked down its entire cavern system it dug up when I tried to remove the calci worm from the dish.

The dish is sitting on top of the cavern, and I almost caused it to collapse when I picked the worm out. I really liked how it sculped it out too!

Will he rebuild it to look as awesome as it did before? Not the same, but just as awesome.

I should've used a spoon to scoop the worm out instead.

hey

i have a dune scorpion too but mine is almost an adult......

i walked into my room one day and glanced into his tank and he was holding onto a big cricket stinging it.......

it was harder for him to handle big crickets as he would grab them and then release them

so i started feeding him small crickets but he doesnt sting the small crickets.....

im back to feeding him big crickets again, just one or two every 10 days....

i had the sand wet down then dryed before i put him in the tank so he could burrow and he made tunnels all around the tank but the crickets would go down there and die so i put loose sand in, i didnt want a mite infestation from dead crickets.

i wouldnt really recomend holding dune scorpions tho becuase they are quick to sting, but usually they will run away first

mine tryed to sting me 3 times, his stinger hit my hand but never broke through my skin.

You don't have to worry much about mites in a desert enclosure. It's too dry for them to reproduce.