Glad to have you here. I'm the mom of a 10 year old boy, and seriously got into the hobby of keeping and raising mantids last year. We also have 6 cats and a 75 gallon community fish aquarium. I guess I should add I'm also keeping various feeders... crickets, house flies, 2 types of fruit flies, and soon roaches, lol. You've come to the best resource to learn about and start keeping mantids. Nice to meet you and I hope you find much enjoyment in your prospective new hobby! Most subadults will probably be too big for pinhead crickets. You can order feeders online (much cheaper and better quality). You have two native species in KY, the chinese mantis and the carolina mantis. The chinese is the bigger of the two. I suggest you try the search feature for the best beginner mantis. Orchids are actually easy but are very expensive right now. I never cared much for ghost mantids. Check out our classifieds for what members are selling. It is your best bet.
hello and welcome to the forum, I was camping in ky once many moons ago, prob before u were born :lol: ! From Ohio! also I think the easiest mantis to keep is the giant asian, they get big, can eat most anything and do good for beginners! Plus they are pretty gentle!
If you can get on this website you can find a website to order flies from. They will ship them to your front door with the regular mail. These are better than store bought flies/crickets too.
