L4 feeding adivise

[snuhan]

so Olivia, my popa spurca, finally molted again!! Hurray!!!

I've been feeding her loads and keeping her nice and warm, so it actually didn't take nearly as long as I had anticipated. It's so pleasing to see the results :^)

This also means, though,  that she actually shot up in size quite a bit. Once my large hydei colony from repticon died off, I went back to little petsmart fly cultures. I just had to feed her a bit more each time, but I don't think she minded. For a twig mantis, she's an extremely aggressive hunter. But also because she's a twig mantis, I feel like her raptorial arms are more like raptorial hands- they're quite short and stubby, to accommodate the absolutely hilarious twig position (the twig-sition). So while she's a just a tiny bit too big for melanogaster,  she's also still too small for... pretty much anything else. I'd just get more hydei, but the only place to get them is one particular petco that doesn't always have them in stock. 

TL;DR I might not be able to get hydei for a while, and melanogaster are no longer practical. Would cutting a mealworm or similar in half be an appropriate substitute, or should I be worried about her eating herself sick or something? 

 

[Connor]

You can always order feeders online. But yeah you can split a mealworm in half and hand feed the guts.

 

[snuhan]

You can always order feeders online. But yeah you can split a mealworm in half and hand feed the guts.

The main reason I don't is that it tends to be a bit pricier than going to the store, and I really don't like to wait TT it's also been a pretty dang chilly winter thus far (we got four inches of snow just the other day, a bit of a rarity) and blah blah I am a minor blah blah I don't always get the okay to order things :^(

Regardless though, I ended up buying fifty little mealy worms, and (after crushing its head, RIP worm) was able to cut/bend one in half. Olivia starting munching right away, and while I don't think she's strong enough to chew through much of the shell, she nearly cleaned out the gooey bits. 

I probably didn't even need to make a whole thread, woops... I just hear a lot about how bad too many mealworm/superworms can be for bugs, and was worried someone might tell me some shocking Bug Health Fact I might've missed :^/

 

[Tonypace2009]

I also use mealworms as a emergency backup they can be stored for a very long time. there are several fruitfly medium recipes that you can use to make your own culture just get a couple vials of fruit flies next time and dump a few from each vial into new culture. also some of the petstore fruit fly vials are bad about the medium drying out recently found apple cider vinegar will re hydrate the medium just a few drops in those small vials. I dont think a few mealworms are bad for mantids but i wouldnt make them the only diet.