Thank you everyone for the resources! I will definitely check out TheMantisPlace. I went out and caught my girl a cricket last night, which was a big step for me. But I would definitely prefer to get her feeders vs catching wild insects. 🙏
Yes, I will feed her live prey. I fed her a fly today that got into the house. I’m not sure if I am willing to go out to catch her food, or order feeders just yet but I’ll start by feeding her any suitable insects that find their way into the house on their own 🥲
Thank you everyone for being so thoughtful and helpful with your responses. Thank you @agent A for your insight into mantis nutrition and thank you @The Wolven for your honesty. Un/fortunately, I have not checked the forum since my last reply and went ahead and bought an H. membranacae since...
Ohh thank you for your reply and yea, it sounds like you can relate! I’m glad to know that you have had success with hand feeding. I don’t mind if it’s time consuming! If it’s a large dubia, I probably would only have to feed once every 2-3 days anyway. And either way, the joy of being able to...
Yea!!! I actually just came across another brand (Fluker’s) with canned pasteurized feeders. They have dubias, grasshoppers, crickets, mealworms, etc. The nutrition breakdown indicates about 60% moisture so water shouldn’t be a problem. It’ll be mostly just getting my mantis to eat lol. I plan...
Thank you for the suggestions; I am considering a roach as well but it’s just that I’ve been obsessed with mantises since childhood and they really hold a special place in my heart… I tell people that it’s my spirit animal haha. So I dream of being able to keep one again, somehow. But perhaps...
Thanks for your input and species suggestions! Yea, I would probably need to get a pretty voracious female to make this work. I wouldn’t want to euthanize the dubias, tho, as that would defeat the whole purpose of this thought experiment. As for the fruit, I know that certain mantids have been...
You raise another good point! Perhaps I could try soaking the feeders in some water for a bit and/or supplementing the mantid’s diet with the occasional fruit?
Those are some great points and I appreciate your insight into this! It might be best for me to experiment with keeping a wild caught local mantis so that in the case that the feedings aren’t very successful, I can safely release it. Thank you so much for sharing your experience ☺️🙏
Thanks for the reply! Is the reason you do that to stimulate the mantis’ appetite? Because dubias don’t bite right? In any case, I am fine with that as long as the insect is already dead. I just don’t want to be directly involved in the death of the insect…So I was thinking of just ordering...
Hi everyone! It’s been many, many years since I’ve been on this forum. I used to be a fairly active member and raised and bred a number of mantids (mostly limbatas). I won’t go into my whole story, but I pretty much took an extended break from keeping mantids as, after some personal experiences...
Hey if anyone has some extra chinese they can spare i'm willing to buy them off you!! I've never raised chinese to adulthood i just managed to get 5 at the insect fair in la but 4 already died..i'm probably doing something wrong i've read that they are actually a bit tricky to raise as nymphs...
Hello all, after a break i decided to check out the annual insect fair at the natural history museum in los angeles. havent gone there in at least 6 years but i managed to get my hands on a brunners as well as some chinese. I've started the quest that is mantid rearing once again and i'm glad to...
wow, i’m really really sorry i just finished this and it ended up being incredibly incredibly long. so please don’t read this until you check how long this really is and decide that it’s not going to take too much of your time. cuz i don’t think i’ve seen any post on this forum half as long as...
today, i decided to try mating my last female with an older male that had already mated previously. i reasoned that since he was older than my other male and had mated already, he probably knew what he was doing in case the female wasn't too mature and got impatient and agressive or something...