# The coincidental mantis-keeper



## Cheirogaleidae (Nov 28, 2009)

Thursday last week I was making my way back from class when I saw a very large something clinging to the wall of my lecture hall, catching the sunlight. It turned out, of course, to be a (Chinese) mantis. It was a very cold morning, perhaps forty degrees, and I took pity upon her and installed her in my dorm room. Since then she has laid an ootheca, eaten an orchestra of crickets (five just today) as well as a good deal of cat food and raw chicken, and only tried to kill me thrice.

I am twenty and a student in Kansas.


----------



## Rick (Nov 28, 2009)

Welcome. Stick to the crickets, don't feed a mantis cat food and raw chicken.


----------



## Katnapper (Nov 28, 2009)

Hello there and welcome to the forum! Glad to have you here.


----------



## revmdn (Nov 28, 2009)

Welcome.


----------



## ZoeRipper (Nov 28, 2009)

Hello and welcome!

I'm new too, and I've only been here for about two weeks maybe?

But I've still learned ALOT.


----------



## Cheirogaleidae (Nov 28, 2009)

Rick said:


> Welcome. Stick to the crickets, don't feed a mantis cat food and raw chicken.


Thanks. Why, from a nutritional standpoint, ought mantids not to eat chicken, etc.?


----------



## Rick (Nov 28, 2009)

Cheirogaleidae said:


> Thanks. Why, from a nutritional standpoint, ought mantids not to eat chicken, etc.?


I've never known mantis to eat chicken in the wild. They eat live insects.


----------



## Emile.Wilson (Nov 28, 2009)

Rick said:


> I've never known mantis to eat chicken in the wild. They eat live insects.


Welcome to the forum, and I bet there was once a mantis that got its way into a chick incubator, and ate one of them? Possibly


----------



## ismart (Nov 28, 2009)

Welcome to the forum!


----------



## hibiscusmile (Nov 28, 2009)

hummm, u just never know what they eat in the wild... welcome from OHIO!


----------



## [email protected] (Nov 28, 2009)

Welcome to the forum.


----------



## PhilinYuma (Nov 28, 2009)

Welcome from Yuma, AZ.

So what's yr major, if I may ask? Yr "orchestra of crickets" is the best group name I've heard since "a flutter of butterflies" so you might, be an English major, but yr nickname is the family that contains mouse lemurs (I made a model of one once) so perhaps you're a music major?


----------



## Cheirogaleidae (Nov 29, 2009)

Regarding feeding chicken, I am under the impression that it is meant to simulate lizards/other small meaty vertebrates consumed in the wild. Whether or not this is wise, I haven't the foggiest. Hence mantidforum: the search for enlightenment!

As to my major, while I would love to be an English major, I would also love to be employed at some point. I'm a bio (wildlife and conservation) major, aiming for vet school at some point.

Thanks for all the 'welcomes!'


----------



## Rick (Nov 29, 2009)

Cheirogaleidae said:


> Regarding feeding chicken, I am under the impression that it is meant to simulate lizards/other small meaty vertebrates consumed in the wild. Whether or not this is wise, I haven't the foggiest. Hence mantidforum: the search for enlightenment!As to my major, while I would love to be an English major, I would also love to be employed at some point. I'm a bio (wildlife and conservation) major, aiming for vet school at some point.
> 
> Thanks for all the 'welcomes!'


The amount of vertebrates eaten by mantids is very small. You don't need to "simulate" them. Feed insects.


----------



## Matticus (Nov 29, 2009)

The protein content in chicken is far higher than in insects (who are mostly fat and chitin). Since that's mainly what they are looking for, there shouldn't be anything wrong necessarily with feeding them chicken, but it could definitely get expensive. Crickets, mealworms, and superworms are cheap and easily available.


----------



## -MK- (Dec 18, 2009)

Welcome to the forum! Yours apparently isn't the only mantis that likes chicken.


----------



## hibiscusmile (Dec 18, 2009)

also I can't believe she only tried to kill you trice! thanks for takin her in, I took seventeen in whe n it staarted to be really cold and they are about a dozen still livin, just got done feeding them actually.


----------

