Oh man....

[Oliverian]

Ok.. I keep mantises, and this year only kept 3. One of them is quite small, compared to the other two, so I thought he might be a male. I took him out of his enclosure to do an underbelly line count (to determine sex), and while he was on my hand, he jumped off and fell underneath the microwave stand. Normally they are calm and don't jump, but I guess he was stressed. Well, I moved the stand very slowly and carefully, and looked under it. In the back of my head I knew something wasn't right.... I could see him, so my mom moved the stand as to not squish him under the wheels. Well, when we moved it, he came out, but then I saw that we had ran over a part of his abdomen, (the first time, when I moved it) and half of it was flattened, with a brown substance and a yellow substance coming out of the end of his abdomen. :( He was still moving along normally, although obviously in some pain. I was quite upset, and I put him in a smaller inclosure so I can moniter him closely. I expect he wont live until tommorow.. but theres a small chance, so i'm going to do everything I can to help. I'm so upset. I know it was an accident, and animals die all the time, but I always get upset when I know that it was me who caused the suffering. Some of you may think he's just a bug, but to me he's more than that. I really hope he will live.. though I highly doubt he will be able to breed with the two girls I have, even if he does live. And what makes it worse is that my mom thinks that SHE did it, and won't let me tell her its my fault. So now she's upset, making me more upset than I already am. It's hard to have an injured animal and not feel for it, even an insect. I do really hope he lives... :( ~TR~ :(

[crazyboy]

i hope he is ok

[sapphire_moon]

hope he's ok...

[XxRachxX]

Ouch!
remember accidents happen! so dont hold it against yourself!
we kill things all the time!
like swatting flies and icky spiders, we tread on ants, snails, beetles, chop worms in half in the garden!
i guess it makes it easier that it cant really show its emotions? i mean if you did it to a cat, you'd definately know that it hates you!! and wants to scratch you eyes out....

dont mean to sound grim.. but if it was in pain, or unable to function properly, how would you euthanise a mantis?

its happened to all of us...
when i was younger we kept gerbils, they were really nervous and used to bite us ALL the time :rolleyes: one day it bit me REALLY bad and i dropped it ...well i pretty much flung it over the otherside of the room...........:( well it broke its leg but we didnt get chance to take it to the vet because..... well she chewed the bottom of her leg off during the night :eek: well it didnt die... and with proper care it healed nicely and lived for ages!! i felt absolutely awful! i kept thinking that id wrecked her life! but she forgave me!..

[Wrath]

I'm sorry to hear about the fatal injury. You keep mantises?? Praying mantises? Does anyone else have those as pets? That's cool! Do you have any pics of him, or the two females that you have?

[Oliverian]

Yea.. I hope he lives too. Hehe, I don't kill flies and icky spiders, as soon as I see them its strait into the mantis or the frog's tank. Its wierd.. I put a snake beside a frog and watch it eat it and I have no problem, but if its me personally or another human that caused the death I get really emotional. how would you euthanise a mantis? Well, probably just squish it really fast.. it would probably be the best way. I really do hope he's gonna be ok.

[Oliverian]

I'm sorry to hear about the fatal injury. You keep mantises?? Praying mantises? Does anyone else have those as pets? That's cool! Do you have any pics of him, or the two females that you have? Well... hopefully not fatal, but i'll keep you posted... :(. Sorry, no pics, I don't have a digicam. I'm thinking of borrowing my friends to get some pics of my critters, but can you upload those without a photohousing account? I'm still feeling really bad, but I think he has a chance at living. Hopefully. ~TR~

[RaVeNo888o]

you can upload pics off your hard drive right onto your ssnakess.com photoalbum. hope he lives, where in his abdomon was he squished on

[Oliverian]

Near the end.... half squished on one side.

I don't know if i should try feeding out of tweezers to make sure he's ok or not.. I think I should leave him alone for tonight and if he's still alive tomorrow, then give him some tweezer food.

[Oliverian]

...//
..oo-................here
..."...'',,..............^
...||\//..''|-|--|--|--|--|=
...||....../...\../..\
...........|....|.|...|

[RaVeNo888o]

lol, hes got spiky hair, glasses, and a v neck sweater

would the squished part block any vital functions? like maybe he cant go to the washroom cause its squished

[Clownfishie]

Hope he makes it... that really sucks :(

[Oliverian]

I TRIED very hard to make that look like a mantis. :p I thougt I did a half decent job. Ignore the dots.. it didn't work when I put spaces.
I really hope he does ok too. I can't know for sure if any vital functions are blocked... only time will tell. He does respond a little when I blow lightly on the cage, but he isn't looking that great. I'll keep you posted though... and let you know if he survives. I just feel really bad because I know it's all my fault. ~TR~

[lilyskip]

really sorry to hear about your mantis. when i was little, though, i remember doing a report about mantises as pets, and they sounded really cool! Good luck...

[Oliverian]

Bad news... this morning I checked on him and found him dead. Honestly, though, I didn't expect him to live through the night. :(

Better news though, one of my 'girls' might actually be a guy! I initially thought it was a girl, but i've been noticing a lot of things that are different from the other girls i've kept. And the number of lines on the underbelly is hard to count on this one... I can't tell the sex. Hopefully a guy. I just have to wait until the one thats definitely a girl turns into an adult, so I can compare...

So thats a bit better. I wasn't really surprised this morning when I found him dead. I'm glad he didn't suffer too much. ~TR~

[TheRedDragon]

I'm sorry to hear about your loss. :(