How often do you feed a mantis?

Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Mantidforum

Help Support Mantidforum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
LemonV

LemonV

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 1, 2012
Messages
78
Reaction score
2
Location
Chicago, IL
I have 2 Chinese (or some sort of large (up to 5-6 inch) African species, I have no idea!!!) mantises at L6, about 7&9 days into their molt. 2 days ago I fed them adult oriental cockroaches and haven't fed them anything since. Is it ok for me to wait till tomorrow to feed them again?

Can you feed a mantis too much? How long should they go between feedings? Are their any special considerations I should take aside from just not feeding them as their next molt approaches aside from stop feeding them when they refuse food and not overfill their enclosures with feeders?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
they can survive quite a while without food. I feed every other day for that instar. gravid females should be fed daily, as well as small nymphs, as they are kept together. males eat less than females, especially as adults.

 
I generally feed every other day. Gravid females are fed more. Keep an eye on the size of the abdomen. YOu don't want it flat and you don't want it appearing like it is going to burst (will appear that will on a very gravid female though). Keep them plump.

 
i feed my large female by dumping a bag of a dozen crickets in her tank every week. Then when she runs out during the week i catch random bugs from outside. Mine is a pig she will go through a dozen crickets in like 3 days.

 
I'm currently raising my first mantis which just had her 4th molt. I just upgraded her food supply from flightless fruit flies to very small crickets (which she loves!). I will soon be leaving for an 8 day trip and I'm worried that might be too long to leave her without fresh food and water. I'll be gone for the 2-3 week period following her 4th molt which might also be cutting it close.

I was thinking of loading up the enclosure with a ton of crickets and leaving a big wet sponge or something to keep the humidity up. Does that sound okay? Traveling with her is an option I guess, but we'll be driving for 11-14 hours at a time which I think might be too stressful, especially for the trip back which is exactly 3 weeks after her 4th molt.

Any suggestions on either how to set up for an 8 day departure or how to safely travel with them? Thanks a lot and hello to you all (this is my first post). :D

 
BriGuy said:
I'm currently raising my first mantis which just had her 4th molt. I just upgraded her food supply from flightless fruit flies to very small crickets (which she loves!). I will soon be leaving for an 8 day trip and I'm worried that might be too long to leave her without fresh food and water. I'll be gone for the 2-3 week period following her 4th molt which might also be cutting it close.

I was thinking of loading up the enclosure with a ton of crickets and leaving a big wet sponge or something to keep the humidity up. Does that sound okay? Traveling with her is an option I guess, but we'll be driving for 11-14 hours at a time which I think might be too stressful, especially for the trip back which is exactly 3 weeks after her 4th molt.

Any suggestions on either how to set up for an 8 day departure or how to safely travel with them? Thanks a lot and hello to you all (this is my first post). :D
Click to expand...
Are you the guy I sent here from Reddit? Your name is very similar. ;) If you pay for shipping both ways, I'll take care them for you, for free.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mime454 said:
Are you the guy I sent here from Reddit? Your name is very similar. ;) If you pay for shipping both ways, I'll take care them for you, for free.
Click to expand...
Yep indeed, that's me. (zBriGuy) That is a very kind offer to take care of them and something I will consider, but I also worry about the stress of shipping her back and forth from Boston to wherever.

One other possibility is to leave her with our upstairs neighbors which can keep an eye on her and mist the enclosure every day or so. I guess that leaves me with the question of would it be okay to load up the tank with a bunch of crickets (and or fruit flies) and leave her for a week? My main concern is balancing the right amount of food that will get her through the week, but not leave too many to harass her and possibly disturb a molting.

 
BriGuy said:
Yep indeed, that's me. (zBriGuy) That is a very kind offer to take care of them and something I will consider, but I also worry about the stress of shipping her back and forth from Boston to wherever.

One other possibility is to leave her with our upstairs neighbors which can keep an eye on her and mist the enclosure every day or so. I guess that leaves me with the question of would it be okay to load up the tank with a bunch of crickets (and or fruit flies) and leave her for a week? My main concern is balancing the right amount of food that will get her through the week, but not leave too many to harass her and possibly disturb a molting.
Click to expand...
You could use staggered Blue Bottle pupae and they will hatch and die off at different times during the week.

 
I feed nymphs to L3 daily, L4 to L6 every other day unless they show signs they are getting to ready to molt, then I stop feeding altogether until 2 day after the molt. I think the longest a mantid has gone has been about 6 days during the pre-post molt process. Adult males every other if not every 2-3 days, adult females everyday. I think another important factor is variety, flies, hoppers, butterflies, as well as crickets. For instance instead of feeding of say 1 cricket, I might feed an adult 4 houseflies or 2 small grasshoppers (back legs removed).

Flies are always a special treat for any mantid and it's fun to watch them get caught. To catch flies I have a 4 x 4 inch jar, lid in one hand and jar in the either I snag em as they jump off my dog supplied fly bait. I also catch them in the house off the window by putting the jar over them and sliding a piece gloss stock paper under the opening of the jar. Turn the jar upside down, lay the lid next to it and when the fly climbs up the side slowly move the jar onto the lid. After I catch them I toss them in the freezer for 2-3 minutes. This makes the flies easy to place into the housings, they'll warm up in a minute or two and start flying around.

If you notice your Mantid is basically just killing feeders but barely eating them, hold off on feeding for a day or so. Just make sure and mist them. Mantids can become pretty easy to read and there are times they don't want anything to do with feeders, they just want some alone time or what I refer to as meditation time. If you see them hanging upside down with their heads lower than their abdomens and they are actively scoping out their housing, cleaning the barbs on their front legs, they're hungry.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Latest posts

Top