ellie1600
New Member
- Messages
- 18
- Location
- Pennsylvania
Looking for some advice/relive my nightmare. Somewhat new to the hobby (appx a year). Ive experimented with different hides in my enclosures, but somewhere I saw clay pots on their sides being used and thought- "Cool!", so, I went out and bought really small ones at Michaels (2 diff. sizes, actually). I also put a silk or plastic flower, a cork bark round, tube or a stick (depending on the species) and a water dish, depending on the size of the T. Not all my T's get a flower pot, but most juvie terrestrials do. So, on to my nightmare- I HAD a lovely L.Parahybana that was one of my first T's and she had a clay pot. She always used the inside or hid under flower. Then, during her last molt, she dug out behind, and slightly under the clay pot. I didnt wish to disturb her, so I tried to keep a close eye on her. After I saw her molt pop out, I grabbed it and started the 10day countdown for a feed; this is my normal proceedure & has always been successful. At the 10 day mark, I noticed she was active and finally popping her head out of her new burrow. I thought, "She's hungry!" I took precaution, however, knowing she might still be tender, and took a smaller than usual red-runner, pinched off the legs (almost all the way down) and TRIED to put at the egde of her burrow. Unfortunately, it fell all the way in. This FREAKED her out and I saw her go down further, out of sight. About 2-4 hrs later, I went to check on her, and the meal was still there. I was going to pull it out, but first, I noticed the pot looked lower than normal (sunk in on one side). This freaked ME out and I lifted the pot....to find an almost cartoon looking, dead LP, totally squished. WTF????? I feel sick about this. My gut says I fed too soon. My gut says to take all clay pots out of my enclosures. Any thoughts out there? BE GENTLE WITH ME- I am already grieving and my own worst critic!