ok i know you've all been on pins and needles wondering, "how's killmoves making out with his new babies?" so i'm here to give you all a quick update
after the first ooth hatched, i had about 100 - 150 nymphs- i released about 40 here and there around my yard (probably a mistake, since they were so young)
the rest i kept in the mesh habitat. leeann came through in the clutch and sold me a raging culture of fruit flies (and she threw in three very cool african twig mantid nymphs, more on them later)
so i dump in a load of flies for my newborns, and they proceed to frantically run from them any time one came close. the next day i woke up to a lot of dead fruit flies, and more than a few dead nymphs, which i understand is normal for chinese.
all in all, it took about four days before they actually started eating the flies (a couple of them ate their siblings), and four days later about half of the ones i didn't release are dead, so there's about 40 (maybe more) nymphs left. after the first molt i'll start seperating them into their own containers, but for now, it's gotta be one big happy.
as for the african twigs? awesome. they eat EVERYTHING lol
i gave them about ten flies apiece yesterday, and this morning they were all down to zero. and if there's one thing i hate in my household, it's wasting food, so good job kiddies!
and that's all i've got for now. oh yeah, i'm still waiting for the 2nd ooth to hatch, so i'll be starting this all over again soon (hopefully)
i guess i'll just keep dropping updates in this post, cuz i know how much you all care