A newbies 1st mantis experience..so far...

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d270

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Apr 17, 2012
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Hi,

I really appreciate all the advice listed on these forums. I bought 3 egg cases back in march, and 2 hatched youngin's for a crazy $12. They must have been an L2? After 2 weeks one L2 Mantid died...stuck in his molt.

I discovered humidity! The other one must be an L4 by now...almost full grown.

I spent too much time figuring out and changing containers and figuring out a "system" how to efficiently feed them.

Then in one more week, 1 ootheca hatched in one aquarium, and another in an aquarium where I had the other two oothecas. One ootheca still has not hatched and I think it probably will not hatch ever...but I am misting best I can still.

After the cannibilism I probably only had about 30 mantids from both oothecas, plus the older one.

I released 21 into my yard, so now I only had a total of 10 mantids to feed.

I have finished with fruit flies.....yuck, and will make a trip to petsmart to get crickets if I can't find enough bugs in my yard.

With no warning 2 just stiffened and died.

My kids recently caught a bunch of fireflies....immediately after the firefly feeding...one mantis, started slowing....stiffening...and I caught a slow moving fly...yet the mantis just fell over on top of it and died...one of the larger ones too :-(

The others really didn't go for the fireflys so I cleaned the cages all out.

So far the mantis' have been existing on small spiders (though most are ignored), the occasional fly and the rest on carpenter ants and misc. bugs. Unfortunately with a wooded lot....I have LOTS of carpenter ants. Even with the ugliest mandibles ever...the mantis' mostly are able to get them without injury.'

I have stayed away from wasps/bees....plenty of those too :-(

I'm glad I kept 10...since I am now down to 7 and none are full grown yet. I don't think I'll do the egg case thing again...well if I do, I won't farm the fruit flies...I'll just buy a supply every month.

I hope this helps some new, newbies!

I wish I knew why the 3 mantis stiffened and died, but oh well.... :)

 
Best to avoid ants and work with flies/dragon flies/moths and other flying insects and also avoid some spiders as even spiders the same size as a l1 nymph can still devour them!

 
Go for bees and wasps if they are available and the mantis can handle them. Free is always better than buying. Good luck with your future mantis rearing endeavors. You'll feel like a pro in no time.

 
Not all carpenter ants have formic acid but some species have some sort of venom that paralyzes victims. Might explain those sudden deaths if you ever gave them ants.

 
Yeah ants are bad for the nymphs, I used aphids when I didn't want to deal with / was short on fruit flies. They worked great and they are completely free.

 
WUT WO......maybe the ants ARE a bad idea.....just had another L2 die...and one has been devouring the same ant for an hour.....

I am down to 4 mantis....maybe 3 now...?? Maybe the smaller ones cant digest the acid. Darn I never read anything about ants being bad until now.

 
smaller weaker mantids will usually always die but the bigger stronger ones will overcome

 
I did something similar, started with 8 that had already been surviving for a while. Two just fell over dead for no reason, I don't think it's uncommon. One got stuck in some water and I thought it was dead but after drying it came back to life and I let it go. The final 5 were at L6 but one just ate one of the others when it was molting (I was preparing a new cage right before it happened :( ). So now I'm down to 4 but more like 3.5 because one is a runt that got injured long ago.

Fruit flies are the only food I had to buy. I did only the fruit flies all the way until L3. I thought about ants but decided against it (ants are tough, plus acid, etc). From there just whatever small things I could catch. Small flies, aphids, etc. Inchworms seem especially good if you can find them. Once they were L4 they could eat small bottle flies, crane flies and such. L5 could eat pretty much anything I could catch (except fireflies, as per my other thread, those were terrible). I avoided spiders though, just seems too risky because even a small spider can pack a potent punch. I also avoided bees and wasps for the same reason.

Now at L6 I guess it will probably be more bottle flies and I'm starting to see some katydid's but they're kind of small and hard to find. There are so many toads and tree frogs right now that they're eating everything. I think honey bees would be great but this is the first year in over decade where I have actually seen honey bees so I'm reluctant to kill them.

 
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Update.....bought some crickets..lol. The L3-4 mantis that spent 6 hours eating the same ant, finally snapped out of its trance and has eaten a smal cricket....so I still have 4.

Nice surprise today, the large flower planter where I stuck one of the mantids I let free a month ago was seen today in that same planter.

It is twice the size now....so it must be doing fine hunting. Of course I thought Id give it a free meal by holding a cricket in front of it with tweezers.....but it just shyed away from it and then the darn cricket got away....$.10 down the tubes....lol.

 
wow....it must be something I am doing.....found another dead this morning. ate a cricket 2 days ago....no sign of a bad molt,....just laying in a droplet of water at the bottom. this Chinese mantid was L3-4 about an inch and a quarter long....so doubtful he drowned.

i just put more holes in his enclosure. im really at a loss.....and unfortunately I have one mantid that has not been growing like the rest.....takes 3x as long to eat (not catch) as any other of the mantids. this runt will probably die off soon.....hes a nice bright green color thoug while the rest are a dingy brown.

could it be an issue with the plastic container? Mold (though I dont see anything like that)?

too warm....its 85 in my garage...no worse than nature. death by boredom? Sigh....

3 left out of the 10 i didn't release.

 
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85 is actually kind of hot. Consider in the wild they are in the natural brush, in the shade, with natural evaporative cooling from the plants and lots of fresh air.

From my reading they need a lot of air. I have two 8"x8" screened openings on each enclosure (free flowing screens, not poked holes).

 
I would keep it inside in a net cube cage or a deli cup or something like that or use a glass jar with dirt as the substrate and holes in the lid and put branches in the dirt for the mantis to climb on or something like that!

 
well I moved them into the basement...much cooler down there. I'll take the top off and put screening there.....more air...and put a paper towel in the cage, and see what happens.

Are cotton balls good or bad for holding humidity, mold, health?

The containers Im using have a narrow top...cotton balls would be easier.

Thanks.

 
d270 said:
well I moved them into the basement...much cooler down there. I'll take the top off and put screening there.....more air...and put a paper towel in the cage, and see what happens.

Are cotton balls good or bad for holding humidity, mold, health?

The containers Im using have a narrow top...cotton balls would be easier.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
In my experience both mantids and feeder insects can get stuck / caught in the cotton fibers. Best to use something they can't get caught in / on.

 

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