Recent content by intheabyss

Cool! I haven't seen any insects outside, but I'm keen to give this a try. So, what do you think if I used a 2L soda bottle, base cut off, with cut out sides and big mesh windows (so it resembles your diagram, but with the original bottle neck and cap on top), and then the cone of another soda...

Thank you, Thomas, that clears up the concerns I had!

I'm so happy to hear that you were able to help her! I hope she'll be OK   :D The tiny new leg is also awesome hahaha

Oh no! I'm glad she's recovered, too! Yeah, you're right... it just seems to be the risk you run, even when you take all the precautions you can in order to ensure the crickets are healthy. Hoping to catch flies with a home made fly trap once the weather warms up....... Maybe I'll just keep...

Thanks! Can I ask what your room temperature range is? My husband doesn't like me having the heating on here, so I keep it turned off most of the time, and it sometimes drops down to around 63 inside. That's too cold, right? I try to keep them around 70 degrees with the lamp. But, then again...

Thanks!! I tried this heat mat, but it didn't heat up very much. No idea how it's supposed to heat an enclosure. So I returned it. Maybe I got a faulty one, I don't know. (Yes, I insulated it underneath, but still it only got substantially warm at the end near the cord, the rest of the mat was...

Sub-adult Budwing female (her name is Tabby) outgrew her deli-cup so I bought a betta cube tank from PetSmart. This one: http://www.amazon.com/Elive-01031-Betta-gallon-Black/dp/B00GO03TTY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1456903898&sr=8-3&keywords=betta+cube The lid has multiple large holes...

That would look awesome!!! The mantids wouldn't have any issue climbing the skull, because of the texture. I think they'd like it. I'm not sure if the antlers would be safe to hang from for molting, though... you could glue a strip of mesh alongside underneath them to be safe. As long as you...

I think so! They were all kept healthily, and none of the other mantids got sick! So, for some reason there was one cricket that was bad... Really weird. But, I have good news! She recovered!!! It took a couple of weeks.... for the first week or so I washed out her enclosure regularly, to get...

Welcome Oscar! Wow... sounds like you've got a lot of tiny critters on your hands (and more to come in the future)! Good luck with them all... I'm sure you'll find plenty of support here, as I have (I only recently got into keeping mantises myself).  

I think that might have been the case. She apparently vomited again yesterday. And she smells strange, kinda like a strong odor of sweet vinegar. I tried her on "superworms", since these were the only decent looking things at the pet shop. She liked watching it crawl around, but didn't go for...

Thanks for this! My heating bill was huge last month, since I'd kept the apartment set at 71 all the time, worried that if it dropped below this, that my mantises would suffer. So I turned the heat down to 66 and recently purchased a 75W heat lamp (it was cheaper than the 60W one on...

Thanks for the advice! Yes, she seems otherwise healthy. I put down a paper towel last night, and there is a fair bit of poop on it today. I'll try some other feeders, as you suggest. Maybe she has just decided she hates the taste of crickets haha.

Hello! I'm hoping you can help me with some advice, please! My Budwing moulted on Friday (five days ago). I gave her a small-medium sized cricket on Sunday, which she ate. Then when I went to feed her again on Tuesday, she didn't seem too interested, so I put a smaller one in and eventually she...

hahaha! I had him on my hand when he decided to fly/hop to my sweater.... somehow landed on a drawer handle about two feet below instead. I imagine him saying "No, this is what I meant to do, I swear!"