Are flies caught from outside healthy for Mantids? (You are what you eat!)

[Meadow98684]

Just wondering, because if you think about what flies eat...the mantids are basically eating that too. You know, you are what you eat. And flies eat poop and garbage so... Are flies that you catch outside healthy for mantids or can it make them sick?

As a little kid I never fed flies to mantids, just grasshoppers and crickets so thats why I ask now to clear this up.

 

[agent A]

as long as they r free of pesticides they r great for them

 

[happy1892]

It seems like the flies make the poop and garbage good and they do eat some good stuff.

 

[eyes]

The bacteria that negatively affect insects are usually a lot different than those that affect other animals such as humans. "poop" bacteria and such don't seem to be a problem.

 

[jcal]

They have lived in the wild for millions of years....yes.

 

[patrickfraser]

:lol: What do you think wild mantids eat?

 

[Rick]

Of course they are. What do you think wild mantids are eating?

 

[dlemmings]

Yup, the ones feeding on the poop are distracted and are easier to net...Mantids have a "filter" of sorts and can eat wild caught flys just fine.

 

[massaman]

I sometimes place pieces of cooked or raw meat in a deli cup with holes in the lid to help catch some flies outside and place it where I want to catch them and that works as well as what chrisp says get some dog doo doo and put it in a bag and put that bag in another bag I think and set it outside and that should also attract flies I think!

 

[agent A]

I sometimes place pieces of cooked or raw meat in a deli cup with holes in the lid to help catch some flies outside and place it where I want to catch them and that works as well as what chrisp says get some dog doo doo and put it in a bag and put that bag in another bag I think and set it outside and that should also attract flies I think!

i use any rotting thing to attract flies

 

[eyes]

Hard boiled egg whites work pretty good for attracting flies too and you don't have to wait for it to rot.

Nothing works as good as animal dung or a dead animal though. Dead toads and dead fish in particular seem to attract hundreds. Too bad I don't have easy access to such things because I never have enough flies. Regular meat and stuff takes too long to rot before it starts attracting them.

 

[angelofdeathzz]

Just to be safe you should always scrub the flies one by one with a soapy toothbrush(use your brother or sisters, not yours) and rinse them well afterwards...just to be safe. :tooth: :whistling:

 

[Meadow98684]

Haha! I've been feeding flies to my mantids for the past 2 days, non-stop. They love them! I'm actually starting to think I should slow down because I keep putting one in the cage right after the other...fun to watch them get caught!

Some weird topics I've been reading on here are making me nervous though....parasites? Fly maggots exploding mantids abdomen? Maggots crawling out of the mantid? Yikes! How does that work and that won't happen to me will it??

 

[Introvertebrate]

Whenever wild caught feeders come up, someone mentions pesticides. As if there were a way to determine if they're pesticide free. First of all, how would we know if an area had been sprayed? And, even if we did, flies have a habit of.....................flying. Just because a fly is in our yard now, doesn't mean it wasn't in a pesticide sprayed field 30 minutes ago.

 

[happy1892]

Whenever wild caught feeders come up, someone mentions pesticides. As if there were a way to determine if they're pesticide free. First of all, how would we know if an area had been sprayed? And, even if we did, flies have a habit of.....................flying. Just because a fly is in our yard now, doesn't mean it wasn't in a pesticide sprayed field 30 minutes ago.

When you see a bunch of grasshoppers or other insects in an area far away from people I do not think there were any pesticides sprayed there recently. It is a risk because they might have pesticides.

 

[Introvertebrate]

Okay, but we're talking about a mobile animal. Who's to say that those grasshoppers didn't just fly in from a place that was sprayed. Pesticide doesn't stay in one place either. Wind can blow it any which way. Rain can wash it into places miles away from its original site. I'm just saying, there's no way to know for sure.

 

[Meadow98684]

Have to bring this up again. If it is so good to feed mantids eating flies, then why are crickets so much worse if you don't gutload them? At least they don't eat poop...I don't understand the reasoning behind it even though I do prefer flies anyways, I'm just curious...

 

[Tony C]

Okay, but we're talking about a mobile animal. Who's to say that those grasshoppers didn't just fly in from a place that was sprayed. Pesticide doesn't stay in one place either. Wind can blow it any which way. Rain can wash it into places miles away from its original site. I'm just saying, there's no way to know for sure.

If you have reason to be concerned about pesticides you can hold the feeders for 24-48 hours after capture, if they are still kicking then chances are they didn't get sprayed or eat anything pesticide treated.

 

[mantid_mike]

I recently discovered a gold mine of mantis food right outside my front door. There's so many bees pollinating all the flowers so I've been hunting them daily to feed my mantids. All my mantids seem to love them. Maybe it's all in my head, but they seem healthier and more alert nowadays.