Tiger died overnight... thoughts on death?

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Posted by Larval_Matt on April 13, 2003 at 04:44:10:

In Reply to: Tiger owners plz help...sick morphed tiger posted by Larval_Matt on April 12, 2003 at 21:35:36:

Hi all,

Sadly, he didn't last the night. I took him out of the terrarium and returned him to a low-water (mostly large rocks and fake plant) aquarium. He was still wriggling a bit, but barely. I have another larvae in there too, who's in the later stages of morphing, and she woke me up early this morning by making a fair bit of noise (shoving gravel around). Looks like she woke me up to let me know (she's never woken me up before...), though that seems something beyond tiger reasoning. Sure enough, the poor dude was fairly stiff.

He still had some fat reserves left, so I don't know if he was starved yet (but must have been close). I personally think that something went wrong with the morph...before morphing he fattened up, and was feeding quite well (and was a good hunter...would spot and nail crickets really fast). After the morph, he was listless and never fed.

I noticed on removing him from the terrarium that his mouth 'smile' that tigers usually have seemed brownish (ie. in between his lips, he wouldn't open his mouth but you could see his 'smile' wasn't the normal colour). I wonder if it was an infection. I plan on removing my remaining larvae from that tank, and remaking a low water tank in another one, in case of something being transmitted (hopefully not).

Any comments on thoughts on his death are welcome, I'd love to know what I might have done wrong or could have gone wrong, so that I can learn from it. This is the first tiger I've lost, and I'm greatly saddened. Tigers are awesome pets, and so personable that it's like losing a friend when one goes.

Regards,
Matt

PS - I'm planning on posting a warning about voracious crickets after this post...turns out just yesterday after adding some they had eaten around 1 cm off the end or so...I don't know if this was enough to kill him (I assume not, and it wasn't bleeding, which already seems odd). I was horrified to see it. I've never had such a problem with crickets, but I've never had such a sick tiger either...I guess they can sense when a tiger won't fight back or run away.

:Hi all,

:I have three tigers. One of them, recently morphed, is very listless, and is losing weight. I keep him and another adult in the same large terrarium (24" x 50") (the third is still a larvae, off in a separate tank). The other adult has been an adult for over a year, and is very healthy, and never picks on the other. The sick tiger was listless as a larvae for a while, then fed well before morphing, and fattened up. After morphing, and being moved to the terrarium, he moves only seldomly, and always leaves his chin resting on the substrate (my other tiger always holds his body up and head up high...the sick guys literally pulls himself around dragging his body along the ground).

:Temps are decently low. I really don't want to lose this guy, but he never eats and doesn't seem that interested in doing much. He occasionally burrows, but often just lies there (I fear cricked will snack on him...I've caught them munching on his some unshed excess skin).

:Please, any thoughts very welcome! I have another low water tank, with lots of fake plants (that I kept him in when he was morphing), that I'm tempted to return him to to keep him away from crickets. I may attempt force feeding him worms soon, as I can't imagine he'll last too much longer without eating (I haven't seen him eat once since morphing three weeks ago, though at the beginning he did make halfhearted lunges as crickets...now he doesn't even try).

:Any advice or thoughts very appreciated!
:Thanks,
:Matt

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