Breeding food in mantid terrarium

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Spring tails and pill bugs can eat the mantids wastes and other things so you might not have to change the subtrate if you use coir. Fruit fly larve might also survive. House fly larve can survive on dead food items.

What do you think might work.

 
Springtails and pillbugs are quite easy to rear in a properly maintained terrarium, I've done so myself for more than a year. My orchid mantis is not particularly interested in either though. When he was a nymph, he never touched springtails but did eat half a pillbug once. I've noticed that he roams around the lower regions of my vivarium regularly, where there's quite a few pillbugs, but I've never seen him eat one.

Fruit flies and house flies are a different matter. If you put medium into the terrarium, you can probably rear fruit flies that way. But you risk having a LOT of fruit flies that way. House flies are a big no-no. If you put sufficient animal protein to maintain the larvae into a hot and humid terrarium, the stench would be unbearable.

I think that rearing any significant number of prey animals in a terrarium will be difficult at best. Springtails and pillbugs are useful in their own right though.

 

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