was wondering since i never had any large species lay any ooths and waiting on my female to mate and figured I would ask what would be best container to use for the large species as all I have right now is a large criitter keeper and stumped on what to put in it to make sure the female does not lay her ooth on the grating and have the ooth be ruined?I took the lid off and put cardboard over the top for now and was wonder if the mantis would lay ooths on perhaps strips of cardboard i cut out and placed in the keeper or make slits in the cardboard top and put the strips through the slits and have the female try to lay ooths on the strips or would cardboard be the worst thing to use for ooths to be laid on and was wondering how everyone else has their set up for large ooths that are being laid?Or should I just get alot of sticks and put those in the keeper and just let her choose what stick to lay a ooth on?
ooth laying enclosure procedure
- Thread starter massaman
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ismart
Well-known member
What species is she? I would not bother with the cardboard. I have found when they lay ooths on the grating it is rather easy to take off. If you don't want her to lay on the grating put in a bunch of sticks, and hopefully she will lay on one of them.
Oh she will be a chinese that I am going to get from abuggin ! Trying to figure out how to position the sticks LOL for bigger mantises as for the smaller ones I have that worked very well was using small sticks in smaller enclosures I lined them up and had them all stick straight up and stuck them in the dirt and both species I have had a 100 percent success rating when i done this and those were Creobroter Gemmatus and Gambian Spotted Eye!
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I've found spraying the ooths with water, waiting a minute, then prying off helps in removal from whatever surface on which they are attached. I've had a Chinese lay an ooth right on the vents. When removed, it was rather funny shaped (it had a square corner too, hehe) ... but still viable and had no problems hatching out lots of cute little healthy nymphs.
Edit: Here's a pic... (sorry, not the best.... but you get the idea.
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Edit: Here's a pic... (sorry, not the best.... but you get the idea.
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kmsgameboy
Well-known member
Im still new to mantis keeping but I would try wrapping the lid in nylon (maybe place the whole lid in a pair of pantyhoes and them put the lid back onto the housing. THE NYLON WILL ACT AS A BUFFER BETWEEN YOUR MANTIS AND THE LID. With luck she will lay her ooths on the nylon and you can semply cut around the eggs and then put a new nylon around the lid for her next ooth. I have no idea as to if this will work but it sounds like a good idea. The nylon might make it a little easier to attach the ooth when you want to hatch it as well!
