PhilinYuma
Well-known member
I am temporarily out of fruit flies and with eight hungy nymphs to support, so I searched this forum for possible alternatives to the usual, honey, bananas and tuna, etc, though I am also using those.
Some months ago, Birdfly from balmy Devon, suggested going out with a sweeping net and pooter to collect wild critters, and I have an old, homemade sweeping net that I taught a grandkid to use ten years ago.
We swept (Actually, I swept while my dog kept guard) the dry grass close to the house, and came up with a surprising number of tiny leaf hoppers, spiderlings and a few microdoptera as well as some fire ants and bees.
I laboriously sorted the usable critters from the grass and ants (the bees had flown off), wishing that I had a pooter. and fed them to the nymphs, Not enough food to sustain them, but a good live food supplement to maintain their hunting skills.
You can buy a decent 15" sweeping net on the Internet for about $25+ plus postage. Don't get a "student" model, since this is code for "cheaply made and will soon fall apart." Mine is made from the frame of a swimming pool skimmer net and the plastic sheet sold in garden shops in the SW to make awnings. All you have to do is remove the exiguous pool netting, replace it with the plastic net, which is porous but will trap the smallest critters, and sew the seams together. Mine is virtually indestructible.
A pooter is a device for sucking individual critters into a collecting container, and I haven't seen one that I really like for sale in the US, so I'll have to make my own. There are excellent instructions for making one here: http://bugguide.net/node/view/147040. This is a "power pooter" in that it is a straight-line jobby used for catching larger insects that are then dumped into a collecting vial. I shall be using mine indoors, to sort the critters from the chaff and unwanted insects, so I shall make a different model by boring two holes in the plastic lid of a wide-mouthed (mayo) jar and connecting the longer, collection tube to a brass or plastic rod which goes down nearly to the bottom of the jar. A shorter tube, projecting just inside the the jar with its bottom opening protected by a piece of mesh, will be connected to the suction tube. This means that I can collect all of the critters into one jar at the same time, or I can just connect the adapted lid to another, similar jar, if I want to seperate the catch into several containers.
I hope that this helps those of you who wish to supplement your mantises' diet. And would be interested in hearing from those who have tried it. Who knows, you might even catch a mantis or two!
Some months ago, Birdfly from balmy Devon, suggested going out with a sweeping net and pooter to collect wild critters, and I have an old, homemade sweeping net that I taught a grandkid to use ten years ago.
We swept (Actually, I swept while my dog kept guard) the dry grass close to the house, and came up with a surprising number of tiny leaf hoppers, spiderlings and a few microdoptera as well as some fire ants and bees.
I laboriously sorted the usable critters from the grass and ants (the bees had flown off), wishing that I had a pooter. and fed them to the nymphs, Not enough food to sustain them, but a good live food supplement to maintain their hunting skills.
You can buy a decent 15" sweeping net on the Internet for about $25+ plus postage. Don't get a "student" model, since this is code for "cheaply made and will soon fall apart." Mine is made from the frame of a swimming pool skimmer net and the plastic sheet sold in garden shops in the SW to make awnings. All you have to do is remove the exiguous pool netting, replace it with the plastic net, which is porous but will trap the smallest critters, and sew the seams together. Mine is virtually indestructible.
A pooter is a device for sucking individual critters into a collecting container, and I haven't seen one that I really like for sale in the US, so I'll have to make my own. There are excellent instructions for making one here: http://bugguide.net/node/view/147040. This is a "power pooter" in that it is a straight-line jobby used for catching larger insects that are then dumped into a collecting vial. I shall be using mine indoors, to sort the critters from the chaff and unwanted insects, so I shall make a different model by boring two holes in the plastic lid of a wide-mouthed (mayo) jar and connecting the longer, collection tube to a brass or plastic rod which goes down nearly to the bottom of the jar. A shorter tube, projecting just inside the the jar with its bottom opening protected by a piece of mesh, will be connected to the suction tube. This means that I can collect all of the critters into one jar at the same time, or I can just connect the adapted lid to another, similar jar, if I want to seperate the catch into several containers.
I hope that this helps those of you who wish to supplement your mantises' diet. And would be interested in hearing from those who have tried it. Who knows, you might even catch a mantis or two!
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