When should I feed my mantis?

Mantidforum

Help Support Mantidforum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Todomantis

Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2018
Messages
16
Reaction score
4
As a rule of thumb, I always fed my mantis when I saw his abdomen was getting thin. However, that was before reaching adulthood. Since he's gotten wings, I can't see his abdomen and I can't tell if he needs to eat. Anyone have any tips for a novice mantis keeper? My mantis is a male Hierodula Venosa and I'm mainly feeding him whole super worms.

 
My adult H. venosa eats about 3 BBFs (primary diet) 3 times per week. Some species begin to eat less after they reach adulthood. I have only fed him superworms on a few occasions and he would only eat about 2 per week... sometimes reluctantly, but he's in excellent health. I would suggest offering food every 3 days. I've never heard of a mantis dying from overeating, so that's probably not a big concern. However, over feeding can shorten the lifespan of a mantis. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hey @Synapze, hiw do you feel about feeding big mantids small meals every day. For example, a small cricket one day, and a small dubia the next. Etc.
If the mantis seems interested I don't think it would be a problem, but checking the size of the abdomen when possible is a good idea. They generally stop eating if full. That being said, overfeeding + over heating = a shorter lifespan. 😕When males are needed to mature quickly for mating many people feed as much as possible and increase temperatures: their metabolisms go into overdrive and they can burn out pretty fast. 

I never feed my mantids crickets... I'm firmly in the "no crickets" camp. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
My adult H. venosa eats about 3 BBFs (primary diet) 3 times per week. Some species begin to eat less after they reach adulthood. I have only fed him superworms on a few occasions and he would only eat about 2 per week... sometimes reluctantly, but he's in excellent health. I would suggest offering food every 3 days. I've never heard of a mantis dying from overeating, so that's probably not a big concern. However, over feeding can shorten the lifespan of a mantis. 
Do you order BBF's or culture them yourself like fruit flies?

 
My golden eats crickets and dubias. Soon I'll be adding black soldier flies.

I take super care of my crickets, if that helps. I swap them out into a clean bins every couple of days, and remove cricket molts and dead crickets daily. Dead crickets are usually mismolts. Im new at dubias so I just keep their bin clean as well. Fresh food every day. I dont buy too many at once, and flush them out for a couple of days before feeding them to the mantids. I keep two sizes: 1/4 pins for the small nymphs, and smalls for the L6 goldens.

 
Top