What do Pinhead crickets eat?

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yea definately not iceburg. I had a bad experience feeding my crickets that lettuce.

and yea feeding them the regular stuff should be fine.

 
Water. I saw a post that said you should take toilet paper, wrap it around your finger nice and tight, soak it in water and put that in there. Replace it everyday or when it looks dry. Will that work?

 
LectricBlueyes said:
Water. I saw a post that said you should take toilet paper, wrap it around your finger nice and tight, soak it in water and put that in there. Replace it everyday or when it looks dry. Will that work?
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I'd hate standing there that long! :lol:

No, seriously... I don't think the toilet paper is a good idea. If you want to do something like that use paper towel. You can get a hamster waterer and put the end down into a shallow cup lid with folded paper towel in the bottom to avoid it drying out every day. Hey, I've got 2 you can have, lol! I purchased some of the water gel crystals, and I love them... not going back to the stinky paper towel mess. ;)

 
wont it hurt to leave your finger in there? and arent u gonna use it anymore? and 1 more question.... what are u gonna use when all your fingers are gone :lol: .

On another note, I use the humidity foam and never fool with anything else, it stays wet for days and they cant drown on it.I soak it till it cant hold any more water and put in the lid I keep it in and thats it.

 
LectricBlueyes said:
Water. I saw a post that said you should take toilet paper, wrap it around your finger nice and tight, soak it in water and put that in there. Replace it everyday or when it looks dry. Will that work?
Click to expand...
They don't care, David! They get plenty of fluid in the veggies and citrus fruits and potatoes that you slice up and toss in, according to what you have lying around. Like Katt says, tiolet paper or paper towels get nasty quickly. I have a lot of untreated wood chips and I toss them in a tupperware bowl and keep it topped up with water. Rick's oatmeal substrate is a great idea, too.

In one of these threads, I mentioned that someone in the Prete book advocates giving animal protein in the form of dry cat or dog food, so that they are less likely to attack each other or your mantids. Both Mija and I use it regularly, but a crick that was hiding when one of her mantids molted yesterday, still gave it a nasty bite, so there are no hard and fast rules. Just don't forget about them for a few days!

 
They should get enough water from their food assuming you're are offering greens, apples, etc.

 
Thank you all very much for the information. I feel bad asking so many questions! Hope it's not too painful/annoying. :)

One last question. I bought 100 pinheads and put them in a small enclosure. I put shipping tape along the top edges and made sure no sticky side was up. This is doing a great job at keeping them down though they rarely get up the plastic.

Anyway... I want to breed these myself so I don't have to buy them or make the trips back and forth. The question is, are these pinhead crickets just baby versions of the big ones? I'd like them to get bigger so that they are big enough to feed my L5 Gambian Spotted Eye. As they get bigger, they could feed larger adult mantids. Thanks!

 
hibiscusmile said:
wont it hurt to leave your finger in there? and arent u gonna use it anymore? and 1 more question.... what are u gonna use when all your fingers are gone :lol: .On another note, I use the humidity foam and never fool with anything else, it stays wet for days and they cant drown on it.I soak it till it cant hold any more water and put in the lid I keep it in and thats it.
Click to expand...
Well, it does hurt a little bit but the nutritional value of my finger is well worth the minor loss. After the 10 fingers are gone I'll probably go with my toes and of course we can't forget about the 11'th finger. When that's all eaten up I'll probably order some Chinese babies. The females go real cheap and come with their own feeder insects! I've already got some rice-based medium all ready to go! Any ideas on substrate?

 
LectricBlueyes said:
Thank you all very much for the information. I feel bad asking so many questions! Hope it's not too painful/annoying. :) One last question. I bought 100 pinheads and put them in a small enclosure. I put shipping tape along the top edges and made sure no sticky side was up. This is doing a great job at keeping them down though they rarely get up the plastic.

Anyway... I want to breed these myself so I don't have to buy them or make the trips back and forth. The question is, are these pinhead crickets just baby versions of the big ones? I'd like them to get bigger so that they are big enough to feed my L5 Gambian Spotted Eye. As they get bigger, they could feed larger adult mantids. Thanks!
Click to expand...
OUCH!!! It hurts... the pain!!! :p Just kidding... better to ask than not to know. ;)

Yes, the pinheads are just babies and will grow into regular sized crickets as adults (about 1" in size). You can use them at nearly any stage of their growth to feed mantids. You'll figure out appropriate size for what size mantis. If the cricket is too big, the mantis won't eat it and will run away from it.

Edit: Adding reply to additional post...

LectricBlueyes said:
Well, it does hurt a little bit but the nutritional value of my finger is well worth the minor loss. After the 10 fingers are gone I'll probably go with my toes and of course we can't forget about the 11'th finger. When that's all eaten up I'll probably order some Chinese babies. The females go real cheap and come with their own feeder insects! I've already got some rice-based medium all ready to go! Any ideas on substrate?
Click to expand...
You're not planning on having kids anytime soon, are you. :huh: Hmmm... maybe that's a good thing! :p

 
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Katnapper said:
OUCH!!! It hurts... the pain!!! :p Just kidding... better to ask than not to know. ;) Yes, the pinheads are just babies and will grow into regular sized crickets as adults (about 1" in size). You can use them at nearly any stage of their growth to feed mantids. You'll figure out appropriate size for what size mantis. If the cricket is too big, the mantis won't eat it and will run away from it.

Edit: Adding reply to additional post...

You're not planning on having kids anytime soon, are you. :huh: Hmmm... maybe that's a good thing! :p
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Sweet! Glad to hear that I didn't buy midget crickets that'll never grow.

Yes, so far my rule of thumb seems to be that thte feeder insect should not be bigger than the mantis and I aim for 1/2 the size or smaller than the mantis.

Thanks Kat! That was such a fast response!

 
You can grow them, but 100 pinheads won't get you far...unless you only have a few nymphs.

Raising/breeding them myself has not proven fruitful just yet!

 
LectricBlueyes said:
Well, it does hurt a little bit but the nutritional value of my finger is well worth the minor loss. After the 10 fingers are gone I'll probably go with my toes and of course we can't forget about the 11'th finger. When that's all eaten up I'll probably order some Chinese babies. The females go real cheap and come with their own feeder insects! I've already got some rice-based medium all ready to go! Any ideas on substrate?
Click to expand...
Yeah, rice paper. You wrap it around your finger real tight.. oops! Sorry! I forgot! :lol:

 
kamakiri said:
You can grow them, but 100 pinheads won't get you far...unless you only have a few nymphs.Raising/breeding them myself has not proven fruitful just yet!
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Nah, I have FF cultures for the nyphs. Really got the pinheads to mix up the diet and to turn those pinheads into adults. Various sized crickets are great for my various sized mantids. :)

 
I just went through this entire thread (Very Instructive :rolleyes: ) but no one has mentioned what pinhead cickets' Very Favoritist Food is, so I'll tell you.

Other pinhead crickets.

 
I bought a bunch of 5 and 6 week crickets and let them lay eggs in some peatmoss, and the pinheads were numerous. I made a mistake of 'watering' the pinheads by putting paper towel in the bottom of the shoe box I had them in, and keeping it moist by putting water on it with a baster. I apparently got too much water in there cause they either drowned or dried up and turned to dust. Maybe the dust was them eating each other, though I had carrots, dog food and other fruits and vegs in there with them. fruitflies took over and I had maggots all over in that box. Oh well.

I figure when I get full grown crickets that I'll just put a small tub of moist peat moss in with them and let them lay eggs and I'll have some pinheads in a couple weeks. Free food from adult mantis food ;)

 

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