# how long does it take you to feed/clean out your mantids?



## beckyl92 (Nov 16, 2009)

just a general question that came to mind.


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## sbugir (Nov 16, 2009)

I go very quick, however my rhomboderas take forever. They move too much


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## hibiscusmile (Nov 16, 2009)

All day, if I do all of them, well I dont think I can do it in one day, usually take two whole days, sunup to sundown to clean them and I try to do it every 10 days or so..............sssssssssssooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!


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## Peter Clausen (Nov 16, 2009)

My captive population fluctuates pretty drastically. There is always stuff to do in the bugroom! Mantises seem like bottomless stomachs.


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## Katnapper (Nov 16, 2009)

Peter said:


> There is always stuff to do in the bugroom! Mantises seem like bottomless stomachs.


+1

I spend hours upon hours feeding, cleaning, misting. Like Rebecca, I don't get them all done in one day... I usually do half or a section one day, then others the next, and so on....

Then you have the breeding couples you need to put together and mess with; and collect, label, and glue all the ooths; mist the incubating ooths and see if you're surprised by a new hatching...

Then there's the feeders to tend to... making ff cultures, hatching houseflies, pupating blue bottles, feeding them honey, feeding and watering the crickets and roaches, cleaning out their enclosures...

And the poor bug room doesn't really always look like the video I made... it's usually much more chaotic and messy! It's actually a full time job sometimes!


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## mantidsaresweet (Nov 16, 2009)

Yeah a full time job but a fun one :lol: !


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## cloud jaguar (Nov 16, 2009)

10 minutes per day. I have few mantids in deli cups atm - a lone mex unicorn female (poor lonely virgin), 2 mated s. limbatas, a harem of 3 male s. limbatas, a parthenogenic m. paykulii adult (mary)... other than that I have 2 net cages with about 10 of each sex of ghosties.

Generally they are pretty easy to care for.... I can only cringe at the full time job some of the breeders on this forum must have!

I am incubating some ooths atm... thus it begins!


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## ismart (Nov 16, 2009)

It takes me about 8 hours to clean all of them. I usally do this once a week. 2 to 3 hours to feed them every other day.


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## sbugir (Nov 16, 2009)

Wow, Yeah I've only got about 40 mantids, and it typically takes me 20 min max. It takes me much longer to make FF cultures, typically 20 cultures takes me 2 hours -.-


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## beckyl92 (Nov 17, 2009)

for some reason it takes me an hour and a half each day and 3 hours to clean them out. i wouldn't say i have loads of mantids either..

im just slow


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## -MK- (Nov 17, 2009)

If I'm being really efficient (and the mantis stays standing upright on the upside-down lid) it takes about 2 minutes per mantis to dump out the old floor napkin, rinse out the container, drop in a new napkin, get it wet, drop in a cricket, and put the lid back on. If the mantis wants to stay out and play, it can take much longer.


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## Rick (Nov 17, 2009)

Ten mins to feed. Cleaning everything takes at least an hour but I don't do it very often.


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## hibiscusmile (Nov 17, 2009)

yea, I hear you! When they wanna play, sometimes I have four or five minimum on my hands and play the devil getting them back in, specially the violins, they are always bad babies....


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## Katnapper (Nov 17, 2009)

Yep...  and then there's the interlude where someone (like a male _Pseudoharpax virescens_) wants to fly up and away and play hide-and-seek on top of the ceiling fan (not turned on, btw). &lt;_&lt; Me... "You little booger!!! Come here!" :angry: ... like he's going to mind and come down.


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## revmdn (Nov 17, 2009)

Katnapper said:


> +1I spend hours upon hours feeding, cleaning, misting. Like Rebecca, I don't get them all done in one day... I usually do half or a section one day, then others the next, and so on....
> 
> Then you have the breeding couples you need to put together and mess with; and collect, label, and glue all the ooths; mist the incubating ooths and see if you're surprised by a new hatching...
> 
> ...


Rebecca, Becky and other big timers(you know who you are), I couldn't even imagine how much work that is. But thank goodness you do it.


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## yen_saw (Nov 18, 2009)

hibiscusmile said:


> All day, if I do all of them, well I dont think I can do it in one day, usually take two whole days, sunup to sundown to clean them and I try to do it every 10 days or so..............sssssssssssooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!


Rebecca, are you serious!! :blink: wow..... Do you watch them finish theri food before going to the next cage


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## [email protected] (Nov 18, 2009)

I would say like 5 or less minutes in the morning and at night it could be anywhere from 5-20 minutes if i watch them "hunt".


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## ABbuggin (Nov 18, 2009)

Peter said:


> My captive population fluctuates pretty drastically.


Same here. I usually spend a few hours on them a day, but when I had the 400+ hatch within a week, I was buried LOL. Thank goodness I was able to sell them off fast!


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## Ntsees (Nov 18, 2009)

I do not put any material on the bottom of my mantid containers so that they'll have an easier time catching the prey (plus the prey can't hide). Therefore, cleaning the container lasts less than 1 minute each (just flipping the container and emptying the contents).


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## bassist (Nov 18, 2009)

About an hour depending on what I have at the time though I usually give them time to walk around which is why it takes so long.


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## hibiscusmile (Nov 18, 2009)

yen_saw said:


> Rebecca, are you serious!! :blink: wow..... Do you watch them finish theri food before going to the next cage


U R funny Yen, not a chance, it is, check cage, everybody doing ok, dump poop, spray water, dump flies or fish out crickets, close cage, stick back on shelf ,... on to the next one. I just finished feeding half of the girls tonight, and about a dozen boys, an that took over an hour or so, then fed the roaches, superworms, crickets, mealworms, carried out the garbage, washed my hands and face, took some pills to relieve whatever is ailing me today and got a drink and came in here, all the while kicking myself, because I was too pooped to finish feeding the orchids tonight, gave them a drink this morning an figured to just feed them tomorrow. Had to much on my plate today, worked feeding at 6 am until, 9 am, then started fruit fly cultures, just getting the mix together and running outside before the rain came to mix it, it always floats around the kitchen and then everything needs dusting, so I do it outside, made the wet mix and went into the new Bugatorium to work, worked there until 1:30 and then ran and disabled the router to my pc and put in Bugatorium, signal isn't reaching the shop in back and then ran to shop to see if I could connect, nothing... back up tothe house.... my pc barely connecting. Back to fruit fly culture, mixed it up and put foil over it till later...later haha.... still isn't done... back to Bugatorium to work on shelving, got it all up and just have to fix... oh theres the door, it is the "Geeks on Wheels" coming to help on the router problem.... can't member password to old pc put in Bugatorium so he will have to come back with software,.... heads to shop in back.... we walk there... can't connect, wonders if the wep password has changed... I wasn't sure what verizon did ... back to house,.... yea it was changed...back to shop... fixed it but stilll has to come back next week... with a repeater and software..... :lol: ... it is now about 6pm and hungry, hubby looks at me and I tell him it is can soup, what does he want, can't decide so we open two and each have half a can of each and a grilled cheese with ham sandwich... back to old bug room to feed, which is where this paragraph started,,,, now almost 9 pm and time for old lady to lay down, watch fifteen minutes of tv and fall asleep!  :lol: :blink:


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## charleyandbecky (Nov 18, 2009)

That is a seriously full day.

As for me, it probably takes about 20 minutes start to finish to clean and feed everyone. But, if I decide to get the kids involved, it takes much longer because they like to watch the hunt, the strike, the meal, the after-meal grooming, etc. Takes forever! I've developed a pretty good system, though, so I usually try to do the feeding and cleaning while they are at school. All except Harry, who is 2, and he watches. He can't say Mantis. He says, "Panties."

Rebecca


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## hibiscusmile (Nov 18, 2009)

HAHA, BABIES, GOTTA LOVE EM... PANTIES!


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## Katnapper (Nov 18, 2009)

charleyandbecky said:


> That is a seriously full day.All except Harry, who is 2, and he watches. He can't say Mantis. He says, "Panties."
> 
> Rebecca


 :lol: :lol: :lol: ! ^_^


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## kamakiri (Nov 19, 2009)

I feed about a third of the herd in about 20-40 minutes. Feeding a few tubs of nymphs with fruit flies is quick. Feeding all the individually housed mantises takes a little while. I usually rotate feeding from every day to about every third depending on the mantis.

Tap out the poo cleaning is done during the feeding schedule and probably doubles the time to feed. Rinse and wipe-down cleaning is mainly done on the weekends and I try to do about half in a day.


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 19, 2009)

This is an interesting thread! So long as I have lotsa flies, the feeding part of the day goes quickly. Attach my pattented fly catcher to the vacuum cleaner, turn on and suck up between 50-100 flies depending on what mantids I have at the time. Pop the jar in the freezer with timer set to 5 mins, pull out two cold packs, put them in my 1gal. bucket with an inch or two of water. Dump the chilled flies into the water and feed them to the mantids 2-3 at a time with a paintbrush and give a cupla spritzes (I never lift the spritzer), about one pot for 10-15 secs. I don't do any cleaning. After feeding, I check to see if they are eating and if not why not. Oh! That one's dead!

At another time of day, I'll prepare ten MT pots with fresh pads and sticks. I use a bung in the side and top, and I'll start transferring one species when the mantis is on a stick or the lid. Just pull it off, scold it if it moves and put it on the new pot. Ten pots, twenty mins. I feed ffs through the top bung with a funnel. Very quick. Biggest job is preparing ff cultures, feeding three boxes of roaches, Turkestan and dubia, and finding the things I mislaid earlier. The walk to the pet store and back is six miles, so I don't feed a lot of crix, though it is nice to see Tiffany and Ashley


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## sbugir (Nov 19, 2009)

Phil, I'm assuming Tiffany and Ashley are the "cute" girls at the pet store?


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## yen_saw (Nov 19, 2009)

hibiscusmile said:


> U R funny Yen, not a chance, it is, check cage, everybody doing ok, dump poop, spray water, dump flies or fish out crickets, close cage, stick back on shelf ,... on to the next one. I just finished feeding half of the girls tonight, and about a dozen boys, an that took over an hour or so, then fed the roaches, superworms, crickets, mealworms, carried out the garbage, washed my hands and face, took some pills to relieve whatever is ailing me today and got a drink and came in here, all the while kicking myself, because I was too pooped to finish feeding the orchids tonight, gave them a drink this morning an figured to just feed them tomorrow. Had to much on my plate today, worked feeding at 6 am until, 9 am, then started fruit fly cultures, just getting the mix together and running outside before the rain came to mix it, it always floats around the kitchen and then everything needs dusting, so I do it outside, made the wet mix and went into the new Bugatorium to work, worked there until 1:30 and then ran and disabled the router to my pc and put in Bugatorium, signal isn't reaching the shop in back and then ran to shop to see if I could connect, nothing... back up tothe house.... my pc barely connecting. Back to fruit fly culture, mixed it up and put foil over it till later...later haha.... still isn't done... back to Bugatorium to work on shelving, got it all up and just have to fix... oh theres the door, it is the "Geeks on Wheels" coming to help on the router problem.... can't member password to old pc put in Bugatorium so he will have to come back with software,.... heads to shop in back.... we walk there... can't connect, wonders if the wep password has changed... I wasn't sure what verizon did ... back to house,.... yea it was changed...back to shop... fixed it but stilll has to come back next week... with a repeater and software..... :lol: ... it is now about 6pm and hungry, hubby looks at me and I tell him it is can soup, what does he want, can't decide so we open two and each have half a can of each and a grilled cheese with ham sandwich... back to old bug room to feed, which is where this paragraph started,,,, now almost 9 pm and time for old lady to lay down, watch fifteen minutes of tv and fall asleep!  :lol: :blink:


hmmm.... so on a day some ooth hatch i imagine you go like.... OH NO!!!  Your mantis are spoil. Compare to yours mine live in a slump.


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 20, 2009)

lemmiwinks said:


> Phil, I'm assuming Tiffany and Ashley are the "cute" girls at the pet store?


Yep!


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## sbugir (Nov 20, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> Yep!


You, cougar, you.


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## PhilinYuma (Nov 20, 2009)

lemmiwinks said:


> You, cougar, you.


I think that guys are just called "dirty old men." But remember, dirty old men need love, too!


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## ZoeRipper (Nov 20, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> I think that guys are just called "dirty old men." But remember, dirty old men need love, too!


Oh Phil, you're so cute. Your posts make me giggle.


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## hibiscusmile (Nov 20, 2009)

hmmm.... so on a day some ooth hatch i imagine you go like.... OH NO!!! Your mantis are spoil. Compare to yours mine live in a slump.

haha, you know the song : movin on up to the east side" ! If they need a vacation, send them on over!


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## chrisnoahdana (Nov 30, 2009)

It takes me hours feeding adults and spaying is easy its all the kids that take forever also have to feed the right kids the right food too diff sizes and then i make sure there all eating too I can spend about 4-5 hrs a day Chris


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## beckyl92 (Nov 30, 2009)

Chrisp said:


> It takes me hours feeding adults and spaying is easy its all the kids that take forever also have to feed the right kids the right food too diff sizes and then i make sure there all eating too I can spend about 4-5 hrs a day Chris


wow.. how many mantids do you have? :lol:


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