# Hungry Mantis



## Jwonni (Sep 23, 2005)

Would a mantis stay hanging from a lid till it dropped dead from hunger or would he go and explore the ground if he was really hungry?

i got an african mantis on tuesday there are a couple of small crickets in there (and one is down the back of the cliff chewing it) and she has not yet eaten for all i know she had eaten something big or just shed before i got her so maybe no big problem yet but i just wanna know if she will try hunting or if i will need to feed her via tweezers till her and her food are bigger so hunting becomes less of a chore for her?


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## ellroy (Sep 23, 2005)

Maybe she is about to shed? You could try feeding with tweezers....I'm sure she'll eat if she is hungry. How big is the cage? It might be too easy for the crickets to keep out of the mantids reach in a large enclosure,

Alan


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## Jwonni (Sep 23, 2005)

yeah her home is big for her current size she is in a 12x12x12 inch glass box

but even in a smaller one if she does not come down to the crickets they wont come up

i had a shot at tweezer feeding yesterday :lol: first one as i raised to her it shed its legs and scampered off to the back

the next just wriggled and got free.... i dont appear to be very skilled with tweezers


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## Jwonni (Sep 23, 2005)




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## ellroy (Sep 23, 2005)

Yes crickets are fiddley to handle at the best of times. If it was me I would keep the mantis in a smaller container for the time being to make sure it gets a good feed then move it to the larger (very nice by the way!) set up when it's bigger.


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## Rick (Sep 23, 2005)

I use tweezers. Grab the cricket on the end of its abdomen and bring it close to the mantis. Make it look like its walking towards her.


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## Jwonni (Sep 23, 2005)

ok i will try the abdomen, as i say i have been going for the legs to dangle em up to now


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## Jwonni (Sep 23, 2005)

thankyou she has eaten now by handing her a cricket via tweezers


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## Chris Dickie (Sep 25, 2005)

tweezers! cant be bothered with them

fingers do fine, although it may be slightly awkward with smaller crix


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## Rick (Sep 25, 2005)

Fingers don't work for me as the mantis thinks my hand is part of the food and gets scared. Besides it's easier to pick up crickets with the long tweezers I have.


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## garbonzo13 (Sep 25, 2005)

Tweezers work GREAT, but what happens when you get LAZY mantids that won't grab, just chew the feeders while your dumb waits for them to get done? I guess I have spoiled my babies rotten. :lol: Oh yeah, lost one of my babies the other day and found it in my Christmas tree with an ooth. ( I leave it up all year long for lighting) That was one in a million shot finding it.


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## Samzo (Sep 26, 2005)

> Oh yeah, lost one of my babies the other day and found it in my Christmas tree with an ooth. ( I leave it up all year long for lighting)


Man, you crack me up.. :lol:


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## Jwonni (Sep 27, 2005)

yay !!!! She has worked it out there is no food on the roof, she has spent some time on the cliff wall at the back now and after catching a cricket on its way up she has moved down the wall a bit and is facing down where the crickets will be. She has picked a few off now so i have still only had to do the one tweezer feed and if she keeps this up i wont have to do it again.

For all I know she had never even seen a cricket before and so did not know where or how to catch them never mind if they were edible, also she will likely have been in something much smaller especially coming from a breeder with as much as who I bought from so she would not have hunted it would have fallen at her feet.


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