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Silverbinder

Silverbinder

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Joined
Dec 26, 2008
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Location
Houston, TX
Hi I'm Silverbinder (nic from another hobby). I am new to the forum but not to mantids. I try to keep a few going for my classrooms. I maintain local species so that I can release them after classes. I have become more and more interested in keeping more exotic species to demonstrate ecosystems and predator/prey relationships.

I am looking for a) informaton b)suggestions on what species to start with. My cages consist of two feet by 2 feet by 3 feet screen cages with plastic pan inserts filled with soil. Plants are added as needed.

Caging and equipment is used to raise chameleons and the design seems to work for most arboreal species. I have larger versions of outdoor housing in good weather.

:mellow:

 
lol, the howdy makes it obvious your a texan. The good thing about living in texas is that theres a few cool mantis species right where we live, maybe you could start by keeping a native mantis. But since its winter theres a few months before you can find em outside again you may not want to wait. Maybe you should check out the breeder feedback section on this forum and find a reliable breeder and check out a few webites, alot of them have caresheets on the species that will let you know how dificult the species is to keep. Welcome to the forum!

 
Hi Silverbinder,

I'm not sure which species to recommend to you, but welcome to the forum! Glad to have you here. Maybe someone with more experience will have a few recommendations. ;)

 
Howdy, Howdy!

I'm just a good old southwesterner, not texan, but arizonan.

From what I've heard, I'm new to this so I don't have dififnitive info, but a large enclosure makes it more difficult to catch the food, so I use quart to gallon size jars, but have since been enlightened that I want to have a hole in the side, probably plugged with sponge, so the mantis' that like to hang from the top of the container can do so unmolested. The hole would be for food, and misting for moisture.

I learned from my first ootheca that I couldn't leave the mantis' alone to survive, cause they dried up and whithered away. I had them in a tomato plant in my indoor garden, so now I keep them in jars to retain moisture, and am sure to mist them. We are a bit drier here than most places in the country, Most of Texas included.

I currently have 15 jars of what I assume are chinese mantis'. 4 jars have only one mantis, and the rest have a couple to several. They seem very friendly, but some get a bit more anti-social as time goes on, I've had them 3 weeks or so, so 'as time goes on' is a pretty funny wat to put it, as they mature. They're still friendly, but they don't seem to run and want to be picked up like they did in the first week or two.

Have fun on here. I've spent hours researching in the last week or so. This is more of a hobbiest forum, but you'll get some good observations and such. Enjoy!

 

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