learned hard lesson about crickets

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Elo500

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so my L5 oxyopsis gracilis seemed to have trouble grabbing the small fruit flies I was feeding the others so I decided to try small crickets from petsmart. Put one in his cup late afternoon and he just wacthed it. I figured he might wait till evening to eat it so I left it in overnight. When I checked on him this morning he was dead and looked like the cricket took a bite. I thought the cricket was small enough for him.

 
It could be that something was wrong with him anyway. If he doesn't appear to have been molting at the time, I doubt that the cricket caused his death. How long was he at 5th instar?

Because you left them unsupervised for a night, it is likely you will never know what transpired between the two.

 
BugLover said:
Sorry about your mantis :( he may have been about to molt?
Click to expand...
That is what I was thinking, but sometimes other stuff happens.

The only problems I have had with crickets were when I fed them straight from the store and some of my mantids got sick.

I have never had a cricket attack a mantis and I have fed MANY crickets to my mantids. I have left them alone quite a few times when I was sure that my mantids were fit, but if it is near molting time, I will see that the cricket is snatched up or I take it out.

 
I only had him for 15 days and he hadn't molted here, so possible he was getting ready or it was something else. I just felt bad that I left the cricket in overnight and it might have contributed.

thanks

 
Crickets are the devil... I only use flies and if I have to in a pinch I will use cricket but wait until after I've gut loaded them and see which ones die and live to tell what is healthy and what is not.

The devil I tell you the devil!

 
Not really buying it. I have used crickets for many years and never had that happen. Cricket don't just walk up and start munching on a healthy mantis or a non molting mantis.

 
i have found this out the hard way too. sometimes the cricket farm feeds the crickets that kill your mantis after eating some or all the cricket. holding the crickets atleast 24hrs and letting them gut load on good stuff will prevent this from happening, but i am sad to say that ist not 100%. but holding the crickets for a longer time helps weed out the sick and give more time to gut load and get the out of there system

 
Yep, crickets are terrible. It's been many years since I've used them as a staple to feed any animal.

Although I have considered breeding cave, or tree crickets as a food source. Never been able to find them in great enough quantities to get a colony going though. Anybody else considered these species, or am I alone on this?

 
Crickets can be opportunistic. They are also omnivorous. If they don't get enough protein, they'll eat other crickets in their enclosure. Put a bunch in with another insect w/o protection from a stinger, and you may very well have a dead creature on your hands.

 

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