This is the first time I've ever had mantids. They hatched a few hours ago, and I rushed to my local Petco for fruit flies, because I didn't think they would hatch for another week or so. They're either Chinese or Giant Asian mantids, but when they hatched, they weren't cannibalistic. They were all together in a tub for a little while before I found they'd hatched.
My problem is that when I introduced the flightless, live fruit flies to their cages, they seemed more afraid of and annoyed by their food than interested in eating it. I stuck some tall blades of grass in the enclosures, for hiding spots so they can ambush, but they're still completely uninterested. Are they just slow eaters, or am I doing something wrong?
I might add that I was initially keeping them in glass canning jars with mesh screwed under the lids to give them somewhere to hang from if they wanted, about two to five to a jar depending on the size. But the jars were too small to eat from, so I transferred them to larger, but not much larger, tanks. I'd say they're about 3" wide, 5" long and 4" high, maybe, but I'm a bad judge of size. So, what's up with them?
My problem is that when I introduced the flightless, live fruit flies to their cages, they seemed more afraid of and annoyed by their food than interested in eating it. I stuck some tall blades of grass in the enclosures, for hiding spots so they can ambush, but they're still completely uninterested. Are they just slow eaters, or am I doing something wrong?
I might add that I was initially keeping them in glass canning jars with mesh screwed under the lids to give them somewhere to hang from if they wanted, about two to five to a jar depending on the size. But the jars were too small to eat from, so I transferred them to larger, but not much larger, tanks. I'd say they're about 3" wide, 5" long and 4" high, maybe, but I'm a bad judge of size. So, what's up with them?
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