Picky ghost females

[HungryGhost]

My two pre-sub adult female ghosts have become quite the picky eaters. Their growth has really fallen behind the males. They used to gobble up house flies and then wouldn't look at them, they then took small crickets for a short time and stopped. They had no interest in bb flies until I removed the wings but now they quit those too. Today I offered them small meal worms with the heads removed and the ate them up. Hopefully they will continue to eat them or cycle back to house flies because I'm running out of ideas.

 

[I_love_mantids]

try grasshoppers! when I catch some and feed them to my mantids they love them!

 

[HungryGhost]

try grasshoppers! when I catch some and feed them to my mantids they love them!

14 degrees here with 6 inches of snow on the ground. No grasshoppers for a while.

 

[Extrememantid]

try grasshoppers! when I catch some and feed them to my mantids they love them!

LOL.. Your not going to find grasshoppers in the winter.. Maybe that would be useful In the summer but not now

 

[Shadow]

Maybe put a little bit of honey on the bug. Honey solves everything XD

 

[PlayingMantis]

My pre sub ghost seems to be going through a similar phase, though in my case, it's the male that's a picky eater. He hasn't eaten in several days - he just swivels his head around to look at his food but never makes any effort to catch it. I know he is not due for a molt yet and he has no disabilities that would make hunting difficult. I was getting a bit concerned today because his abdomen has grown rather thin, so as a last resort, I beheaded a cricket, squeezed out the goo, and held the goo to his mouth. It took several attempts because he kept refusing, but finally it dawned upon him that the goo was actually food and tasted good. He ate the rest of the cricket rather hungrily.

I'm not sure what to say about females not eating. I hope yours start getting their appetites back.

 

[I_love_mantids]

try buying grasshoppers. post a wanted ad.

 

[Aryia]

My L4 female is behind the L5 male now too :/ Hopefully her reluctance to eat is a sign she's going to molt soon! She's been only taking one of the three flies I give her.. and the rest of the flies just end up dying in her enclosure