PlayingMantis,
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I'm sorry you had to go through it, too! And yours were males, so like Ranitomeya says, it's unrelated to being heavy with eggs. But, were your males heavy? I just feel guilty that in my ignorance, I let my girls maybe get too fat (when I thought they were getting ready for ooth laying). Everything I've read says feed them and they'll lay bigger, better ooths!
My Hierodula's anus seems to be holding at two tiny bubbles and she is passing frass. I am feeding her flies now--no dubias. At 36 days, she and the six day-old male are just gawking at each other from their containers. I'm giving him another week to mature, let them be mantids, and hope for the best for her.
Aside from them, I also have Double Shields (she is only 10 days-old but he is a month old and literally clawing at his container to try to get to her!) She must be airing pheromones already considering his interest.
My Budwing female is fattening up again after her huge infertile ooth. I do have a teeny male---they are both 38 days-old--- but I'm not seeing any interest from either of them. I see mating them as the death of him.
The Chinese mantids (first post) were my first mantids and although I mated them, they both died before any ooth was laid. She made it a month before her anus turned black and died and he passed two weeks later. So, I have very little experience with mating mantids. I just know that my bug room must be heavy with pheromones right now and I'm glad I can't smell them!
What's your experience with mating mantids? I don't want the ooths as I'd rather buy nymphs from someone who want to hatch them but at the same time I'm thinking I should allow the mantids to go through a natural life cycle... Thoughts? Opinions?
Deacon,
No problem! My male rhombos were kept full, but not overly full. I fatten my girls up a lot, and sometimes I fear they'd eat too much!
Sorry to hear about your hierodula. I hope she is still able to be mated, and eat normally.
I didn't have any luck with double shields until the females were 4 weeks ago, but you could try at 3 weeks. They are really agressive, so be careful.
You could try mating the budwings, but be sure to keep a close eye on them. Sometimes it helps to raise the temperature by a couple of degrees, and/or to use a fan and blow air on them, to coax them "into the mood."
And about your Chinese mantises - I had the exact same issue with Rhombo stalli early last year. The mated female stopped exuding a nasty black substance from her butt and she eventually started turning black so I had to freeze her.
Well, I mean, mating mantises depends partly on luck, partly on skill (reading the mantis' body language, creating the best mating environment, etc). Honestly, I feel sometimes it's more due to luck! I have trouble mating ghosts, or rather, getting mated ghosts to lay fertile ooths, and to this day, I still haven't successfully bred ghosts. But with violins - which are supposed to be a tricky mantis - I placed the male with the female, forgot to place them outside, where it was warm (close to 95 degrees at the time), and came home to find that the pair had connected at 80F room temp. And with orchids, I've had females refuse to be mated, mated females that got eggbound, mated females that laid ooths but the ooths turned out infertile. Luckily, I had 8 mated orchid females and 3 laid fertile, hatching ooths. I gave them all the same care. I guess that boils down to luck.
So just try your best, don't be discouraged. And it helps to have multiple pairs, and more males than females - if something goes wrong, you have additional pairs as backup.
