What do you keep your mantids in?

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I am a teacher and I can't tell you how much miss-information I give my students on accident or because the material is outdated. The public school curriculum isn't exactly cutting edge. Lol but you never know, maybe she got it somewhere reputable. Perhaps she would let you know so you could share?

 
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Yup. No offense, Lark, but I know some of my teachers in high school who would lie and be stubborn enough not to admit that they are wrong.

 
I guess it is a miracle that this Ghost survived after eating a wild lacewing...

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I can't imagine the horrors that the wild moths they ate must have carried in, surely they are doomed to fall dead at any moment. :yawn:

 
Guys guys. Outside of blatantly feeding my mantis a nasty bug or filling her house with moldy dead things and fungus. I am sure she will be fine. Insects wont go all feeble (immune system wise) in a few generations. It takes hundreds of years to change the DNA of a being.

The soil I have in there is potting soil. Quite fine. The sticks from an acorn tree. My yard and the surrounding ones have been pesticide free for more than 10 years. (Aside from the occasional fire ant war, which I plan to start up again very soon. For my 2 year olds sake).

As long as I don't try and feed her mosquitoes (my area (swla) is swarming with them and the city sprays our ditches with stuff to combat them). She will be fine. No need for a big debate.

 
aychen222 said:
Yup. No offense, Lark, but I know some of my teachers in high school who would lie and be stubborn enough not to admit that they are wrong.
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Lol I e never blatantly lied but I have been corrected by students before. It's a gracious teacher that accepts the correction and nurtures the student and provides the environment such that the student can feel secure in correcting politely. But I've also worked with jerks that are just as you described.

I was wanting her to share her source with mantidbro so he could share with us. :) I think there are lots of peeps that use outdoor food, soil, and sticks and there hasn't been problems and still some that have had the sad event of a death shortly after feeding a wild insect or adding sticks or something. I think that's why I want to see the source because I'd like to see what is fact and what is not. :)

 
MantidBro said:
She went to college for biology, that's where she got the information. That's the source.

Honestly, it may or may not be true, but I don't want to risk it with my mantids, either way. She told me that it could take months for the effects to kick in, IF the mantid hasn't already gotten sick and built up an immunity to it.

I can ask for more information, but honestly, I don't even care to put her in the middle of this, seeing how some are becoming quite offensive. You're all acting like she doesn't know what she's talking about when she's got a degree in biology, and most of you don't. Just saying.

So all in all, believe what you want to believe, guys. No hard feelings, but I'm out. :wacko:
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I know plenty of people who do not know what they are talking about with degrees. Unless you provide a source it means nothing. Please do not spread miss information.

 
MantidBro said:
She went to college for biology, that's where she got the information. That's the source.
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That means next to nothing, you will meet plenty of idiots with degrees in the course of your life.

 
I'm not saying she doesn't know her stuff, but if your only evidence is "she told me so," then I am going to give you a hard time.

 
Tony C said:
That means next to nothing, you will meet plenty of idiots with degrees in the course of your life.
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I concur. Book smart and no common sense. If she is as smart as you claim, she should be able to provide you with the source of her info. Maybe she'll find out she has been providing false information. I don't see any negative impact on just asking for the information source, other than better educating of the educated. :lol:

 
From a teacher, has a degree in biology:

"Some captive mantids may have some resistance to some things since all mantids bred in captivity came from a few wild caught mantids. So all colonies in captivity had a wild ancestor. It's possible that even the 20th generation could've retained some of the resistances. However, it's likely that it would be watered down and that only a fraction of the entire hatchlings would have the genes. But not all immunity is genetic and these are the ones that would most likely kill a mantis. You get a flu shot to build your immunity to the flu to prevent yourself from catching the flu because you're not immune to the flu, even though both your parents had their flu shot and have higher immunity to the flu because they had the flu long before you were born. They didn't pass on their resistance to the flu to you. And what is the a flu shot? It's a weakened version of the flu virus that's being injected into your body so your immune system can recognize what this bad flu virus looks like so it can kill it more quickly when you catch it, and if they don't believe it they can look that up on yahoo/google.

　

Look up Natural Selection for themselves as that's what facilitates immunity. The ones that get sick die and the ones that either survive the disease or are immune to it survive to breed, which passes on any genes that give them resistance. So only the most beneficial genes get passed to new generations. In the wild you wouldn't see so many dogs with hip displacia (common in labs), respiratory problems (very common in bull dogs and pugs, that's why you always hear them wheezing and snoring), muscular diseases/issues, etc because they wouldn't survive to pass on these genes that cause these genetic issues. But in captivity we just breed two dogs together for puppies to sell and then cash out money to a vet to keep them alive. In the wild the weak would be eaten and like breeds wouldn't breed w/the same breed. There'd be more mutts/mix breeds as non-pure breeds have stronger/better genes since it's less likely parents from different breeds will both carry the same repressive gene that causes negative health problems and what not. Pure breeds get the negative health problems 50%+ of the time.

　

Many people haves successfully fed their captive bred mantids wild caught insects without their pet having any health problems. However, you should just take a bit more effort to feed captive insects to not risk them having a shortened life span. Feeding wild food to captive bred animals is like playing roulette. You just never know what resistances your pet has from genes, what immunities they got by getting sick while with the breeder, and weather or not the wild caught insect is sick or has been infected by a parasite's egg. I mean you're family told you not to eat dirt as a kid because of all the parasites eggs pooped out by animals and all the parasite that nymph's grow in the soil. Unless you got a high power microscope to check for these things you just never know what something from outside has on it or inside it. Isn't it better to know where your buddie's food is coming from. Wouldn't you like to know better where your burger or veggies were coming from?"

 
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We asked for her source and we got...."mantids for dummies"??? Google and yahoo? Makes sense, I mean, can't put anything that's not true on the Internet. Iam so glad that google and yahoo are so reliable. Kony 2012 all the way.

 
glock34girl said:
We asked for her source and we got...."mantids for dummies"??? Google and yahoo? Makes sense, I mean, can't put anything that's not true on the Internet. Iam so glad that google and yahoo are so reliable. Kony 2012 all the way.
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lol reminds me of a commercial..forgot what it is..State Farm Insurance?

 
likebugs said:
I too, would like to see some evidence.

I have been using outdoor sticks, other items, and feeders, for the couple of years that I have been rearing mantids. I have had no problems with any of that when employing common sense, like not using anything from an area that is treated with pesticides, or not feeding obviously ill or dangerous insects to mantids.
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Looks like this thread is turning into a discussion about using wild insects as feeders. I agree with Likebugs.

Though I'm not an expert, I've been raising mantids for about 2.5 years now and have learned a lot from the forum and my own experience. At the moment I'm keeping 24 species. My mantids thrive when fed a variety of insects. I live in Minnesota and am not able to catch any wild insects for about 6 months of the year. I try give all of mine that can take insects larger than fruit flies some wild caught insects during the warmer months. And I feed as many as possible to my females that I'm using for breeding.

I also collect a lot of sticks. I look them over and rinse them off in hot water before using them. I've never had an issue with them.

 

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