How would I care for these small wild crickets as feeders

[Okoboji22]

So I noticed one day that if I walked through the grass these really tiny crickets would hop out. The smallest ones were as small as fruit flys and none of them are any bigger than a small moth. These could be a good fruit fly replacement and I was wondering if anyone would know their species or how to raise them in general.

 

[Synapze]

Personally, I would just use them as feeders now, assuming you use no pesticides on your lawn.

You'll need many more to establish a colony. Here's a link if you're interested. 

https://m.wikihow.com/Raise-Your-Own-Crickets

 

[Okoboji22]

Personally, I would just use them as feeders now, assuming you use no pesticides on your lawn.

You'll need many more to establish a colony. Here's a link if you're interested. 

https://m.wikihow.com/Raise-Your-Own-Crickets

thanks for the link! there is plenty more than the ones in the photo. im going to try and raise these, it will be interesting to see if it is possible to start a colony. even the small crickets in a pet store are a lot of times still too big for an L3 or L4 mantis, but these are the perfect size for them.

 

[hysteresis]

Reptile stores sell eighth pins and quarter pins. Tiny crix. My baby ghosts used to love them. 

 

[Okoboji22]

Reptile stores sell eighth pins and quarter pins. Tiny crix. My baby ghosts used to love them. 

unfortunately theres no reptile specific stores around where I live so the only way I could get pinhead crickets is offline, which is a little expensive and they would likely grow up before the mantises could eat a lot of them since I usually have 3 mantises at most. 

 

[Okoboji22]

quick update: so I've done some research and ive found the species. its allonemobius fasciatus, a type of robust ground cricket. they have a pretty wide range, stretching all the way to Canada and down into texas. their relatives mostly live in the great plains. because they live on the ground im thinking they lean more towards dry food like seeds. i gave them an apple slice and dry cricket food and they seem to prefer dry food more than the apple slice. with such a wide range im thinking they may actually be a hardy species that can be cultured.

 

[Mitch65009]

Is it bad to feed large half size crickets to adult Mantids??

 

[hysteresis]

Crix carry risks from bacteria and virus. They also have biting mouth parts. Large mantises dont typically have a problem with that, but if they grapple it such that their maw is near a mantis part, it could bite and cause injury.