Extrememantid
Well-known member
It took me 5-7 days with green bottles when I put them in enclosures seperatly... When I hatch them with all the other pupae it takes like an hour.
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yea, young pupae upsets a lot of people, but then so do the old, all that is acceptable in most instances is the "just right" goldilocks style. No one in America wants to wait, they want drive thru :scooter:
pupae and they want it now!
pupae and they want it now!
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Summerbug
Active member
Here is my experience. The trick for mealworms is to fatten them up. Don't use them fresh after they arrive (when they are skinny). I keep mealworms at room temperature. I fatten them up by letting them live in their food/substrate. I spray the mealworms with water once a day. I keep my mealworms in raisin bran (without the raisins). The meal worms eat that raisin bran up and get fat and juicy and filled with lots & lots of "yummy goo." They also get squirmy & active and I've had mantises dive into the mealworm cup to grab a mealworm because the mealworm squirming got the mantises attention. It will take a while (couple of weeks) for mealworms to fatten up. You might want to fatten a few up (like 10-20) depending on how many mantises you are feeding. Store the rest in the fridge. If you keep too many mealworms for too long at room temp they may become beetles. That will happen faster the warmer the room is. Mantises will eat beetles but they don't seem to enjoy them as much as the worm (they lose interest after a few nibbles of beetles). I never use mealworms as the ONLY food source though.
