Food from the garden

[Fidelio]

Hello all. I've got my first Mantis, a sphodromantis of some kind and he's doing fine. He's about 35mm head to tail. So far I've been feeding him crickets I bought, although I've nearly run out of small enough ones. I was wondering now that the weather's getting warmer whether I should be able to find enough food in my garden rather than buying another box of crickets. I've also given him the odd moth and he's made short work of a few houseflies. Some sites I've looked up say you can feed them pretty much anything you find in the garden except things like spiders and wasps, ants, bees, and for some reason, woodlice.

Does anyone know if there's anything else in the average Southern UK urban garden I should avoid? I seem to have quite a few shield bugs at the moment and I was wondering if they'd be OK?

Thanks

 

[Jackson]

Do people nearby use pesticides?

Variety is good but using crickets would probably be best.

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Off topic:

Where did you get your mantis from?

There are 4 others on here who live in the west country.

 

[Markus D.]

Hi,

i feed my mantids in the warmer month only with insects from my garden.

i made only possitive experiences with it. But try it only when you are 100% sure that your neighbours doesn´t use pesticides.

Wishes

Markus

 

[Rick]

Go for it! I do it. I grab up anything I can find. During the winter it's just about all crickets which makes for a bland diet. But during summer I catch all I can to give some varitey and it does help. But crickets are fine if you gutload them well. I feed my crickets crushed up dry cat food and fresh baby greens to make them more healthier for my mantids and turtle.

 

[Fidelio]

I didn't realise pesticide could be a problem. I guess I was thinking that insects that had been exposed to pesticide would be dead, but I suppose if they'd just caught a small dose they could be harmful.

On another note, I've kept Indian Stick Insects for a while, and I thought I could feed spare ones to the mantis but I've seen on the web that they are not good for mantids. Anyone know why? Maybe if I ever get round to breeding them or hatching an ootheca I could be a bit more cavalier and experiment a bit.

@Jackson: I got mine from Clevedon garden centre. They have a few different mantids, stick insects, tarantulas and the usual arthropod pets.

Since then I found a shop in Bristol called Webs and Wings that seems to have a bigger range.