With the mortality rate of nymphs I would not get just 1. If you do not wish to breed them yourself and just want one to have at adult I would get ... hmmmm .... 5 - 7 of them if they were L3's ... if they are L1's I would prob want 10, but that is me.
I have take 2 adults and mated them ... she laid 3 ooth .. all 3 hatched so I have had some expereince with them.
Out of the ..... 175 .. ish .. that hatched ... i am ending up with about 25% at L4 age. Maybe if rinsed out the sponge pad in the bottom of all those containers more often than every few days more might live .... maybe if i only fed flys ... more might live ... i am doubting it AND prefer that only the strong survive.
no need to continue an inferior line in my book ... if it cant or wont hunt for it's food, then bye bye it is too stupid to be allowed to live.
I leave about 40ish per 32oz cup. The mantis mostly hang up top, as do the ff's, though sometimes i have to tap the cups to make the melongaster's run to the top. The hydei are usually near the top waiting to be eaten.
I am sure someone here will have something for you in your area. If they give you a price you can PM (private message) them to ask if they can do any better. For the most part, if they post it here it is probably a fair price from anyone with many posts under their belt. If someone tries to ask too much I would think someone would scoff at them about it. Like if they wanted 100$ for a Giant Asian ooth ...hehehe
If you want to feed them crickets you might check to see how large the crickets are at the place you are most likely going to get them. 2 places near me have different size crickets. If they are too large for your mantis you may have a problem with them eating.
Anyway .. I think I probably rambled enough (darn percocets make me do that) ... hope you can get some helpful information in all this mess.
