1) He/she will be hungry. I always feed mine right away. Mist if your ambient humity is low.
thnx so much for the hlp1) He/she will be hungry. I always feed mine right away. Mist if your ambient humity is low.2) Give him "a few." Check next day to see how many are gone and how many are dead (that's one reason why I find a paper substrate so useful) and base your feeding strategy on that. If you find a number still alive, you may want to feed every other day. Better too many than too few, though.
3)Once you get your feet wet, you'll do fine, honest!
dang 20! thats lot! lol thnx for the hlp.
ok cool thnx
. he ate 3 alrdy lol. hey when imist do i mist derectly on him? or just on the side(inside) of the cup
Not usually. They likely will settle down, and the nymph/s will eat what it wants at their leisure until the fruit flies die (usually a couple of days). If you've put so many in that they seem to be stressing the mantis continuously, I would remove some of them. If a mantis cannot even sit and rest in peace for stretches of time because of too many feeders in with it, it can become stressed to the point of illness or death. Way too many fruit flies in the enclosure when a mantis is molting can also interfere with it molting properly.
There would have to be lots of extra flies in there to cause the risks I previously mentioned. I routinely put in many more than I know they can eat, and it works out fine. I just thought I'd mention that you don't want to go hog wild and put tons in there!
ok good thnx for the hlpNot usually. They likely will settle down, and the nymph/s will eat what it wants at their leisure until the fruit flies die (usually a couple of days). If you've put so many in that they seem to be stressing the mantis continuously, I would remove some of them. If a mantis cannot even sit and rest in peace for stretches of time because of too many feeders in with it, it can become stressed to the point of illness or death. Way too many fruit flies in the enclosure when a mantis is molting can also interfere with it molting properly. But I wouldn't concern yourself with that worry too much.
. ya i did not put a ton in there just more than i wanted to. he has plenty of room to chill B) . so when i mist do i mist derectly on him or do i just mist the inside of the cup?
Sounds like you're doing fine. I like to mist them directly about the head, so they can drink the droplets if they're thirsty. If they bend down and try to drink from the surface of the container, I'll give them another shot or two to make sure they have enough there to get a decent drink. If they run away or don't appear interested in drinking, just leave it at that until the next time.ok good thnx for the hlp
o ok thnx for the advice
. i just feel bad when i spray him in the face with water :lol: , cuz if some1 did that to me i would be pissed off lol .
o i didnt even think about it being warm i have just been using room temp distilled water. i didnt kno to do it twice a day either i have just been doing it once. thnx for all the help
. both of the mantids are doing fine by the way. the little brown one(mystery mantis) aka Flash has so much energy. most of the time when i look in his cage he is running around lol . i actually saw him jump from the bottom onto the stick once :lol: . the african mantis aka Scyther likes to just chill by the hole where the foam stopper is and take out fruit flies. he is getting me angry tho cuz he wont move away from the hole and i want to mist him but hes to close to the foam! lol :lol: .
