Violin Mantis Nymph Food HELP!

[jinpark]

Hey guys! I'm a beginner and I just received a violin mantis and I thought my pet stores sells fruit flies but they don't!

What can I feed my violin nymph? It is only about 2cm!!!! I don't think it can eat crickets. Maybe earthworms but I also read that they don't like crawling creatures

Can anyone suggest me what I can feed it?

 

[warpdrive]

bare in mind that I'm a newbie myself and my advice is only worth a grain of salt...

go back to the petstore in the morning and see if they have any pinhead crickets. if not ask for smalls...order something like 100, and then pick through them and use only the tinyest ones.

then get online and order some fruitflys. you will need overnight shipping.

use only the smallest of containers for your new mantids and have a stick that they can get to the bottom of it to get the cricket. also only one mantid per deli cup until you get some food, to help with canabilisum at this time.

Harry

 

[kitkat39]

If it's not too cold where you are at, you can squish some banana inside a container and leave it somewhere for flying fruit flies to enter into the container to eat the banana and you could use those temporarily. Meanwhile make sure you order fruit flies online ASAP. If it is too cold where you are at then this information is useless and your Violin Mantis will probably just eat each other until you find them some food.

 

[sporeworld]

I'd say (a) order from mantisplace.com whatever is appropriate (probably House Flies). If they're L1 or L2, hop on Google Maps and type in "pet store" and "reptile" and start calling around. I find if they sell reptiles, there's a fair chance they'll sell fruit flies or know who does.

Mine only needed House flies for L1-L3, and then all Blue Bottles from there.

Good luck! And Go-Go-Gongy!

 

[PeterF]

Fish sellers also sometimes carry FFs. I don't remember enough about fish keeping to know if there is any nutritional reason or if people just "feel better" giving their fish a "real" food treat sometimes.

kitkats suggestion of trapping wild fruit flies is a decent panacea.

but depending on how many you need, finding a culture for sale some where, and a possible long drive in a pinch, might be necessary for the sake of your mantids.

 

[nebrakacinese]

I've been buying cultures from petco,if you have one near you,they also use them for bettas and some reptiles,good luck.

 

[kitkat39]

Fish sellers also sometimes carry FFs. I don't remember enough about fish keeping to know if there is any nutritional reason or if people just "feel better" giving their fish a "real" food treat sometimes.

kitkats suggestion of trapping wild fruit flies is a decent panacea.

but depending on how many you need, finding a culture for sale some where, and a possible long drive in a pinch, might be necessary for the sake of your mantids.

Yeah my idea was just a way to get food as soon as possible, although probably not much. You gotta remember that their Violin(s) were shipped from Frey way out in Poland and have probably been starving for days in the mail already by now. Poor mantis..... such a long trip and when it finally arrives it gets greeted with no food.

 

[PhilinYuma]

Get houseflies from Mantisplace or SpiderPharm. If you haven't done so already, do it now. Frey sometimes packs some food in with her mantids, but you should feed them soon. In a pinch, you can use tiny roaches or crix until the flies arrive.

 

[kitkat39]

Get houseflies from Mantisplace or SpiderPharm. If you haven't done so already, do it now. Frey sometimes packs some food in with her mantids, but you should feed them soon. In a pinch, you can use tiny roaches or crix until the flies arrive.

Good advice

 

[jinpark]

I've been searching far a wide and I've still found no place for fruit flies. But surprisingly my violin mantis is still alive! And is very active :S

I'm not sure what it's eating to survive but it's surving on it's own. The cage I have the mantis in is a real as nature gets and I've noticed that live insects have been spawning from the soil. My guess is that my mantis has been catching them. I've also asked for a quote at mantisplace and asked them if they ship to Canada. I really hope so.

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

I've been searching far a wide and I've still found no place for fruit flies. But surprisingly my violin mantis is still alive! And is very active :S

I'm not sure what it's eating to survive but it's surving on it's own. The cage I have the mantis in is a real as nature gets and I've noticed that live insects have been spawning from the soil. My guess is that my mantis has been catching them. I've also asked for a quote at mantisplace and asked them if they ship to Canada. I really hope so.

You can tell a hungry mantis from a well fed one easily. Yours (If it's eating) should be plump or should have some shape to it's abdomen. It should not be flat or overly thin. An active violin sounds odd, too. Since from what I hear they just stick in one spot and catch food as it crawls by. If it's active, it could be searching for food.