# What DO you do?



## Morpheus uk (Jun 12, 2007)

Im going on holiday to spain later this year, and im worried to death about my inverts, whos going to feed them? Im going away for two weeks and none of my family have a clue about bugs and neither does anyone else i know, also keep worrying if thier shut thier limbs or anntennae in the lid, what could i do and how long do mantids go with out food?


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## FTyross (Jun 12, 2007)

Don't you have _anyone_ who can look after them, afterall, mantids aren't too difficult to look after, water once a day and give them a cricket or two. Although I can't comment on how long they go without food - I'm not about to starve mine to find out


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## Kriss (Jun 12, 2007)

I have the same problem.

No one is local to my house who knows how to keep my bugs.

I put enough food in my mantid enclosures to last 1 week.

I asked my future father in law who was local to spray my bugs every two days.

I left notes on how much each one needed spraying.

He didn't need to open any lids or handle anything because he could just spray through the the bars.

I set the room up so the heating would come on for 1 hour in the morning and one hour in the evening and kept the blinds closed to keep the heat in.

He had my mobile number just incase he was stuck or something did go wrong.

I was worried because there is always a risk of something going wrong when your away and having to rely on someone else.

When I got back everything was cool and nothing had died.


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## Asa (Jun 12, 2007)

Teach a friend how. Who knows, maybe he'll want some for himself :wink:


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## FTyross (Jun 12, 2007)

Indeed, getting a friend to do it would be the best option considering the length you'll be away


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## yen_saw (Jun 13, 2007)

Depending on the what stage of mantis you have, generally, smaller nymphs require food more often than larger nymphs as the smaller one grow very fast and molt often. without food/water, L1-L2 will not likely to stay longer than 1 week. larger nymphs/adult can survive w/o food/water for 2-3 weeks. It is never good to let mantis starve eventhough they can handle it, i realized that frequency of mismolting increases with less nutrition/poorly fed mantis. I was away from home for a week recently, what i did was adding some fly pupa in the mantis cage a day before leaving home, and remove more pupa from the fridge and add them in the cage with plenty of live flies prior to leaving. that way, you can ensure food supply for a good week as pupa will continue to pupate over next few days. Also, remember to have food not only for the mantis, but for the feeder as well, so a cup of honey water will help to extend the life of your feeders besides better nutrition for your mantis. For small nymph (L1-L3) which i kept together in groups, i have flyable fruit flies with honey watre in the cage, the fruit flies will last for a week no problem. Obviously, this work for a short period of time (1-2 week). The best way is still have someone to care for. Have any of your family member drop few pupa in the cage everyday, it shouldn't be too difficult, unless you have loads of mantis like myself. Also, if you are leaving for longer period of time, you might want to consider leaving the blue bottle grubs in a pan and let it pupate, which will take a longer time to hatch.


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## HempKnight (Jun 14, 2007)

I am always scared that someone is going to crush my inverts limbs inside their deli cups. :shock:


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## Morpheus uk (Jun 14, 2007)

Me too lol, thx all, got it sorted now, im going to chuck a load of castors in


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