how can I feed my nymphs if fruit flies don't come on time

[Gekkonidae]

That may work. Or you can just start another culture. Pretty easy once you have so many, plus it's always good to have a backup culture in case one crashes on you.

 

[PlayingMantis]

yes i do agree. its is really time consuming. its what i exactly did just today haha. 

yes i heard… the crickets from pet stores aren't trusted, but there wasn't any other choice.

i will try to ask if they have any live mealworms the next time i go there, thank you.

we dont have too many aquarium shops here, and i doubt they do have FF cultures but if anything, they will be my second choice to look at, thank you. 

oooh, i will definitely try feeding my crickets with fresh veggies as i still have some!! (many of them escaped throughout my house due to not careful actions…) ill have to check again with you on that

also, where do you recommend me getting crickets from if not from the pet store? thanks for everything!!! 

I order my crickets online from cricket farms - you get a big box of 500 for $15 with free shipping. Each box lasts me around 1 month. The downside...you need to do a lot of work to maintain the crickets (feeding, cleaning, etc) and it makes more sense to order bulk crickets if you have a lot of adult mantises to eat all the crickets.

As to FF cultures, a fresh culture starts with lots of media and a couple dozen or couple hundred adult flies, depending on how many was used to "seed" the culture. As the flies multiply and the population booms, you'll get tons of flies that will slowly deplete the media as the larvae consume the media and mature into more flies. When the media runs out, or the culture dries out, depending on which comes first, the culture dies. Usually before that happens, you need to take some adult flies to "seed" a brand new culture with freshly prepared media. And the cycle goes on. 

 

[Starving Always]

Do you know if the crickets you're buying is safe for the mantids? Also, how do you take care of them? I know that I can feed them lettuce. 

 

[Extrememantid]

can't you spray water and it'll moisten it? isn't the media supposed to get eaten? 

You can spray it, but after a while that just doesn't work any more lol. And huh? Media, medium I've heard and used both lol, same thing.

 

[SpaceWolf]

I've also heard from some folks that they like to eat raw meat from a toothpick