Blood worm

[C.way]

Finally get back home from home town yesterday, my biggest challenge at the moment is to provide foods for my growing number of mantis nymph, without the quantity of small insects around me now, I am forced to the final substitute for them, blood worm, a type of aquatic worms that will emerge as midget fly when it turns adult, something that looks similar to mosquito, this is also my first time putting idea of feeding mantis with aquatic foods into action, results:

-pretty messy, blood stain is every where

-need to place it in water droplet so that it can move to attract nymph

-from some site, this creature has high fat, not sure if it cause any health problem to mantis

-mantis are busy trimming on and off, after touching it

long term problem is not identified yet as this is my first time trying on such creature

 

[sufistic]

Finally get back home from home town yesterday, my biggest challenge at the moment is to provide foods for my growing number of mantis nymph, without the quantity of small insects around me now, I am forced to the final substitute for them, blood worm, a type of aquatic worms that will emerge as midget fly when it turns adult, something that looks similar to mosquito, this is also my first time putting idea of feeding mantis with aquatic foods into action, resultsretty messy, blood stain is every where

-need to place it in water droplet so that it can move to attract nymph

-from some site, this creature has high fat, not sure if it cause any health problem to mantis

-mantis are busy trimming on and off, after touching it

long term problem is not identified yet as this is my first time trying on such creature

I've never tried those before and don't think I ever will. I was trying to trap Houseflies by following Yen's advice and although I didn't get much Houseflies I did get a lot of wild D. melanogaster fruitflies from the trap. I then captured those and made cultures out of them which seems to be doing well.

Do you have fruit flies? If you don't, try putting some prawns in a container with a lid that has a hole (roughly 1-2 cm radius) on it. Put it at a good location and you'll get some wild D. melanogaster almost instantly. Once you see enough fruit flies in there, put a sponge in the hole. You might get some Blue Bottles and Houseflies too! Try and trap an excess of D. melanogaster and start a culture or two. Once you see maggots, give the surviving adults to your hungry mantids.

I'm just afraid those blood worms might have some parasites in them.

 

[C.way]

I've never tried those before and don't think I ever will. I was trying to trap Houseflies by following Yen's advice and although I didn't get much Houseflies I did get a lot of wild D. melanogaster fruitflies from the trap. I then captured those and made cultures out of them which seems to be doing well.Do you have fruit flies? If you don't, try putting some prawns in a container with a lid that has a hole (roughly 1-2 cm radius) on it. Put it at a good location and you'll get some wild D. melanogaster almost instantly. Once you see enough fruit flies in there, put a sponge in the hole. You might get some Blue Bottles and Houseflies too! Try and trap an excess of D. melanogaster and start a culture or two. Once you see maggots, give the surviving adults to your hungry mantids.

I'm just afraid those blood worms might have some parasites in them.

how do you get those wild melanogaster into your mantis house? it seems easy to trap them, but to really catch them and put them together with the mantis is very challenging

 

[ismart]

This already sounds way to messy! This reminds me of trying to feed mosquito larve to mantis nymphs. Your probally better off waited for them to mature to midget flies before offering.

 

[Ntsees]

I used bloodworms this year for my mantid nymphs. Considering that the midge larvae are already small, I feed them whole and don't chop them up. It didn't bother them much and they seem to like it. The thing I like about the bloodworm is that they are insects (thinking they'll provide the similar nutrition requirements), soft, and they are a good source of water since they're aquatic. The way how I feed them to the mantids is that I use the sharp end of a tooth pick to "hold" the bloodworm (I just let it stick to the tip) and lower it to the mouth of the mantid. The mantid usually senses it and starts eating it. If I ever find info that feeding bloodworms is bad, I'll stop using them, but until then, they haven't caused me any problems.

 

[sufistic]

how do you get those wild melanogaster into your mantis house? it seems easy to trap them, but to really catch them and put them together with the mantis is very challenging

If you trap them in the container with the hole on the lid, just use a smaller container to cover up the hole and the flies will move into that smaller container. Then transfer them to your mantids. If the smell is really bad, you'll get wild D. melanogasters real fast.

I used bloodworms this year for my mantid nymphs. Considering that the midge larvae are already small, I feed them whole and don't chop them up. It didn't bother them much and they seem to like it. The thing I like about the bloodworm is that they are insects (thinking they'll provide the similar nutrition requirements), soft, and they are a good source of water since they're aquatic. The way how I feed them to the mantids is that I use the sharp end of a tooth pick to "hold" the bloodworm (I just let it stick to the tip) and lower it to the mouth of the mantid. The mantid usually senses it and starts eating it. If I ever find info that feeding bloodworms is bad, I'll stop using them, but until then, they haven't caused me any problems.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing this info.