Getting 2 Budwing ooths

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Herp13

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Hey all, i'm getting 2 budwing ooths in a week or two and was wondering what i'm gonna do with all the babies! I should end up with around 40-120 and it's my first time with mantids in general(besides the chinese, who sadly died this morning). Can anyone give me suggestions on how to care for them and what to keep the ooths in and so on and so forth. Oh, pics of your ooths and setups would be good too, so i can have an idea of how it should look. And how much should i sell the extras for? Oh, and what about feeding. And how many loses should i expect?

 
get some fruitfly cultures going ASAP. you're going to need a lot, i would get 3 cultures going just to be on the safe side. i would hatch the ooths in separate containers. once they hatch, wait about a day before putting in the fruitflies. since you have so many, you can just house them together until they're a more manageable size. you are going to have some losts though. you can try putting them all in the separate containers if you want, but that'll take a while.

 
:) i have 2 budwing eggs of my own and i mist them every day and make sure they are warm i just started this new way to me at least you can hot glue it to the wall make sure the (zipper) the part where the nymphs come out is facing the inside of the enclosure. When they hatck they will be black and after the second day feed them fruit flies (can purchase at a pet supply store) and don't be surprised if a lot die or they eat eachother. Then just every other day drop some flies in and the survivors will live together if well fed. P.S. when they reach their 3rd shed separate them.
 
I don't recommend trying to attract wild flies. I doubt you will ever get enough. You will need a lot. Go to a place that sells them or buy them online. What I did was I got a few vials of flies from carolina.com. Then I bought some fruit fly medium (food) from them and made my own cultures in 32 oz deli cups. I have to make a new culture about once a month but at any given time I have millions of flies. I have never had to buy flies since the first time.

I recommend hatching each ooth in at least a five gallon aquairum or large net cage. Don't try to seperate the nymphs as it will be hard to do and you won't be able to care for hundreds of seperate nymphs. I use a small funnel and pour the flies into the tank or net cage. You will have to find a way to do this without opening the cage all the way up as the nymphs will escape. I usually leave all nymphs together unitl I have about twenty or so left. Then I seperate them into 32 oz deli cups.

The cups have a hole cut in the side plugged with a piece of foam. I use the funnel to get flies into the cup for the mantis. Disregard the fly vial in the pic as I don't use those anymore.

mantids092.jpg


 
If you are not quick enough and worry about fruit flies getting all over the place (my advice is to get the wingless ff), put the culture in fridge for 2 minute and that will slow down the ff.

 
Oh yeah I forgot to mention putting them in the freezer for about a minute. When you first get the flightless flies they can't fly. But once you have bred them for a year like me they start being able to fly again.

 
that's a bit on the pricey side, they're usually around $10. also, i'd recommend getting the bigger species of ff, d. hydei.

 
springtails might work, but fruitflies are better because they crawl everywhere whereas springtails stay on the ground. besides, fruit flies are juicier. as for the meal worms, you can use them but you'd probably have to handfeed them. do you have time to handfeed hundreds of nymphs?

 
Fruitflies are the best bet for them. I don't think tiny mealworms are gonna work. The mantids will mostly stay at the top. I'll tell you what, I have a new 32 oz culture that I will sell you if you can wait about a week for the maggots to hatch and get established. PM me if you're interested.

 
Here is a site where I go to buy all of my fruit flies for my mantids. They sell a fruit fly culture kit that comes with six small glass jars, 2 tubs of the food, little plastic nets that you put into the jar and medium for the flies to live in, and two cultures of flies to get you started. Since you got budwings you should ask for the D. hydei. If you order from them, I recommend you call the number and order that way as they will ship it out faster. http://www.timberlinefisheries.com

 
hi

on the subject of attracting wild fruit flies, a few days ago i was getting into a panic about getting food for my soon to hatch asian mantis ooth.

luckily the plum tree in the garden this year have produced millions of plums (well nearly :) ) must be the hot summer caused by g warming lol, so i just cut some rotten ones up, removed the stones etc and bunged them in two ice cream tubs. after a day or two the fruit flies arrived - lots! theres litterally a big cloud of them fly out when i tap the container. quite impressive. must be laying lots of eggs too. the fruit also attracts loads of wasps, bluebottles etc which are useful for feeding the adults.

 

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