First Shed Questions

[phreeze]

My ghost ooth hatched last weekend and they seem to have slowed eating considerably, which i guess meens they are approaching their first molt. At the moment i have them all in a single enclosure but i'm a little worried as they are still quite activly running arround and knocking one another to the ground, and i'm worried that if this happens to a molting or recently molted mantis it may end up with an injury. can any one advise me on if i would be best to try and split them into their own containers before the molt? Any other advice on fist molts would be appreciated.

 

[MantisNation]

My ghost ooth hatched last weekend and they seem to have slowed eating considerably, which i guess meens they are approaching their first molt. At the moment i have them all in a single enclosure but i'm a little worried as they are still quite activly running arround and knocking one another to the ground, and i'm worried that if this happens to a molting or recently molted mantis it may end up with an injury. can any one advise me on if i would be best to try and split them into their own containers before the molt? Any other advice on fist molts would be appreciated.

If the container they're currently in is of decent size, and theres enough twigs, and branches inside, then they should be fine during molting. I notice L1's will eat literally up to the day they molt.

 

[Rick]

Shouldn't be a problem. You are going to have deaths no matter what you do.

 

[phreeze]

yeah i understand that, just want to do what i can to keep any death to as low a level as i can, if that means 30 housed individually i'll do it, but if that won't improve their odds it dosn't seem worth it.

 

[mrblue]

from personal experience, p.paradoxa youngsters have VERY low mortality. if you really wanted to i reckon you could get every single hatchling to adult (im talking completely hypothetically, as in assuming you had enough space and food etc) with maybe just one or two deaths. maybe i just got a strong batch. housing them individually would no doubt improve their odds, but i think their odds are already high enough that you really dont need to worry about it. the first moult is over very quickly, i cant recall ever having any fail by being knocked. you might be surprised how efficiently they moult even with all the hullabaloo going on around them.

 

[MantidLord]

Yeah, as long as you have a descent sized container. I had a molting mantis knocked down and killed by the hyper youngsters once. It was my fault for putting so many in a small container.