Feeding question

[BenJamn]

Hello there,

I am raising a male Chinese mantis. He seems to not eat as frequent as I have been told. He is at his 5th instar. What I do is I will coax him onto my hand once a day and I place him in a 5 gallon to which I have placed crickets that have been on a healthy diet and moths/butterflies I catch outside. Obviously he prefers the flying insects. Yet for the last few days he has ignored the crickets and will only eat the fliers I bring him. My question is a two part. I need more flying insects but am limited in space for setting up natural traps. Is there a vendor you reccomend that I can get flying feeders? If so what would be a great purchase? Thank you in advance for your knowledge.

 

[Rick]

For flying feeders I prefer bluebottle flies. These are readily available as larvae and pupae and are inexpensive. An adult Chinese will require a lot of them so maybe something else is needed. The good thing about the species is they will eat most anything so flying food isn't required.

 

[Sticky]

Males dont eat as much as the females do. They need to be slim trim and light in weight to fly around as adults when its time for them to go looking for girls.

Flies are popular with mantids and here are several great people who sell them.

Mantidpets, Mantispets are the first two to come to mind. There are others who do that are not here. Rainbow Mealworms sells the spikes, or maggots. But check the Classified sections for flies too.

Bioquip sells special lights to attract moths. Set up a white sheet and hang your light in front of it and then you can pluck off all the moths you want. I used regular light bulbs to attract moths. The ultra violet lights arent so bright so my neighbors are not botthered.

 

[BenJamn]

Thank you you two for your information. You two rock.