# Breeding Moths for Food!?!



## kmsgameboy (Aug 16, 2009)

My mantis seem to LOVE moths. I catch wild moths and use those for food. To makes things easier for mme and secure food for winter I have thought about buying or catching worms/moths to breed. Has anyone done this? Does anyone here keep moths? I have never done this and need all the help and info I can get! THANKS EVERYONE!


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## Emile.Wilson (Aug 16, 2009)

Wax worms, Horn worms and silkworms you could probably buy in a local pet store, you could find a care sheet on the internet too.


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## PhilinYuma (Aug 16, 2009)

kmsgameboy said:


> My mantis seem to LOVE moths. I catch wild moths and use those for food. To makes things easier for mme and secure food for winter I have thought about buying or catching worms/moths to breed. Has anyone done this? Does anyone here keep moths? I have never done this and need all the help and info I can get! THANKS EVERYONE!


I'm sorry, but raising any mantid food that has only one generation per year is just not worth the while. It is fine to catch moths and other insects for your mantids, but the time and space spent on what would just be a few minutes' snack, rules out breeding such insects asmoths for food. Most mantis keepers prefer not to raise even such common and multigenerational foods as crix, flies and bluebottles and buy them on a regular basis, but you might want to check out members' experiences on this forum as well as the net. Breeding these conventional feeder insects would be a much more productive use of your time and effort.


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## mythal (Aug 16, 2009)

Waxmoths are very easy to breed. Actually, the problem often is, that they breed a bit too much for comfort. As they use a honey based food medium, they are not very likely to start breeding indoors, should some escape. It is not a good idea however to let them escape outdoors, as they cause damage to bee hives.

I'm also actually interested, if there are some other moths/butterflies to grow. Or maybe some other flying insect other than more common fly types.


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## ABbuggin (Aug 17, 2009)

Breeding moths would be nice, but IMO not a good turnaround after all the effort. Just buy some blue bottle fly pupae (PM me if you want to know how I deal with them) for $6 for 500. They are a large fly, and mantids love them.


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## kmsgameboy (Aug 17, 2009)

ABbuggin said:


> Breeding moths would be nice, but IMO not a good turnaround after all the effort. Just buy some blue bottle fly pupae (PM me if you want to know how I deal with them) for $6 for 500. They are a large fly, and mantids love them.


 Thanks man. That sounds like an idea. My only thing is I would rather have loose moths in my house rather than flies but I just may PM you!


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## ABbuggin (Aug 17, 2009)

kmsgameboy said:


> Thanks man. That sounds like an idea. My only thing is I would rather have loose moths in my house rather than flies but I just may PM you!


Don't worry about the loose flies. One or two will escape here and there, but I have a few tricks that virtually eliminate any escapes. B)


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## dino2 (Aug 17, 2009)

i made a wax moth culture, it wasnt hard at all and it had a good outturn, but it did take a long time, i jsut bought wax worms from a bait shop and then put them in a oat/honey medium and u just let them sit. in a few weeks they will make cocoons and then in a few more weeks moths, i beleive that each female can lay like 50 eggs or so?. its not alot of work but it does take some months.


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## tonyi (Aug 18, 2009)

I use wax moths too and they've been great. The turn-around is no problem for me since I've noticed that the larvae develop at very different rates. I kept my culture warm while the eggs were developing and while the larvae were very small. Once some of them were big enough to use as mantis food, I put the culture outdoors, which drastically slowed down their development. This has meant that I've had easy access to larvae for several months. Some are still larvae while some are fully developed adults so I can pick and choose, all from the same culture. They're extremely easy to keep compared to house flies (no stench, no biohazard food medium). The only problem is that my mantis only seems to like to eat the larvae. The adults are simply too passive. They sit perfectly still pretty much all the time and only move when prodded. Even then they only move a very short distance and then proceed to sit perfectly still again.

But the larvae are good enough for me so I keep raising them.


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## massaman (Aug 18, 2009)

the downside to wax worms is they are also relatively fattening and should thus be fed sparingly as treats instead of dietary staples. Probably could do more harm then good to the mantis and not all species of mantis will go for a wax worm!


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## Orin (Aug 30, 2009)

There are a few types of grain moths (large Pyralis and small Plodia) that take no effort to rear but acquiring livestock and a methodology for continuous mass breeding is not so simple.


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## Orin (Aug 30, 2009)

I found a page with a ton of grain moth species pictured:

http://www.pbase.com/tmurray74/pyraloidea_...ralinae___moths


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## tonyi (Aug 31, 2009)

On a side note, I've managed to teach my orchid mantis to take wax worms, so it can be done even if it is difficult at first. I usually use a pair of tweezers to squish the head of the wax worm, then hold it to the mantis' mouth, as is customary when hand feeding. At first, he was quite scared of the wax worm and didn't know what was going on, so it took quite some time to get him to grab it. Months later, he'll recognize the procedure and grab them pretty much instantly.

About the fattening issue, how does it affect insect metabolism? For herps, fish, mammals, etc. it would be easy to figure out but insects are different. I mean, some of them eat almost nothing but sugary liquids, a diet that would mean death to a herp, fish or mammal. Also, is the effect different on an adult as opposed to a nymph?

Secondly, I've noticed that at least my wax worms seem to contain different liquids; one transparent one that looks like nectar and a white thick one, which I suspect is more fatty. My mantis typically seems to like the nectar-like fluid best and then discards the remains of the larvae when the good stuff has been eaten.


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## ABbuggin (Aug 31, 2009)

Orin said:


> There are a few types of grain moths (large Pyralis and small Plodia) that take no effort to rear but acquiring livestock and a methodology for continuous mass breeding is not so simple.


I regularly see a few of the species linked (gongylus favorite lol). How would one go about rearing those?


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## d17oug18 (Aug 31, 2009)

i just use a heat lamp, when they cage is at a really high temp(above 100F) the male goes into action, at least thats how i go about doing it. Ive also noticed that the male gongy likes to drink water, while the female is annoyed by water lol. Go figure, theyre complete opposites lol ^_^


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