praying mantis?
- Thread starter yungzerk
- Start date
yungzerk
Chameleon Enthusiast
also i forgot to note the only reason i ask is because im looking for more things to feed my boy! He’s currently eating a good amount of different feeders (BSFL, silkworms, roaches, crickets, hornworms, and occasional morios) and i just ordered him so grass hoppers, but i seen chameleons really enjoy praying mantis’sHello! i was just interested to see if anyone has ever used praying mantises as feeders? and if so where did you get them from, anything helps thank you
ChamelaChameleon
Chameleon Enthusiast
They are sooooo expensive. I can't remember the price but the price range was out of my budget. I talked to a mantis supplier and he said most people purchase mantis as pets.also i forgot to note the only reason i ask is because im looking for more things to feed my boy! He’s currently eating a good amount of different feeders (BSFL, silkworms, roaches, crickets, hornworms, and occasional morios) and i just ordered him so grass hoppers, but i seen chameleons really enjoy praying mantis’s
I am interested in trying snails as feeders but I could not find a supplier. Also mantis are mean and they definitely bite.
yungzerk
Chameleon Enthusiast
okay so hear me out on this. During the summer i have an abundance of mantis’s around me, do you think it’d be stupid to try to breed wild ones?
at this point i’d try almost anything to get my sweet boy some different feeders! and i did see they could eat snails but i didn’t even think about thatChamelaChameleon
Chameleon Enthusiast
And mantis are mean. They definitely bite.
ChamelaChameleon
Chameleon Enthusiast
Go for it. That would be a great idea. Just remember mantis bite.okay so hear me out on this. During the summer i have an abundance of mantis’s around me, do you think it’d be stupid to try to breed wild ones?
ChamelaChameleon
Chameleon Enthusiast
I'm trying to breed grasshoppers. I have eggs but no hatchlings.
yungzerk
Chameleon Enthusiast
yes i will! i wouldn’t ever feed a mantis too big that could potentially hurt my boy from a bite
but i’ll let you know how my project goes in the future
yungzerk
Chameleon Enthusiast
this is also something i’ll be trying soon, i just ordered some and if todo loves them then ill order more and try to breed
MikeyBen
Established Member
I've read about people feeding mantis to their cham. Recommended to go with smaller size rather than an adult female. This way the cham can capture at least half of the mantis body in its mouth and avoid the spikes on the its forearms. Freshly molted mantis is better, that's if you beed them.okay so hear me out on this. During the summer i have an abundance of mantis’s around me, do you think it’d be stupid to try to breed wild ones?
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
What I’ve done a few times to help control soil gnats is hatch out mantis ooths in my enclosures. I’ve gotten the ooths from eBay. This is the perfect time of year to do it. The sellers which I’ve bought from no longer have any, but this should help. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2510209.m570.l1313&_nkw=mantis+ootheca&_sacat=0 It looks like you can expect to pay around $10 for a single ooth.
I never saw a single mantis in any of my enclosures within a few days of them hatching, thanks to my little hunters. I did keep back around 25 or so of them and put them in a large clear bin. I kept them well fed with fruit flies and pinhead crickets to prevent them from eating each other, which kind of worked. The biggest challenge was that every time I opened their bin to feed them, some escaped. I ended up with about 5-6 of them and put them in my (at the time) outside screen cham enclosure. Two survived for a while and then it became one…then he was gone too. None never made it anywhere close to adulthood and I didn’t really have the heart to feed any of my holdbacks to the chams. They are super cool animals and fierce hunters.
I never saw a single mantis in any of my enclosures within a few days of them hatching, thanks to my little hunters. I did keep back around 25 or so of them and put them in a large clear bin. I kept them well fed with fruit flies and pinhead crickets to prevent them from eating each other, which kind of worked. The biggest challenge was that every time I opened their bin to feed them, some escaped. I ended up with about 5-6 of them and put them in my (at the time) outside screen cham enclosure. Two survived for a while and then it became one…then he was gone too. None never made it anywhere close to adulthood and I didn’t really have the heart to feed any of my holdbacks to the chams. They are super cool animals and fierce hunters.
AaQb420509
Member
I personally would just buy a pet one from online and try breeding it . Just cause with wild you never know about parasites . I was asking the same thing about snails a while back and multiple professionals told me its real hard to get them cause no one really breeds them . And wild ones carry parasites . I was toldyes i will! i wouldn’t ever feed a mantis too big that could potentially hurt my boy from a bite
yungzerk
Chameleon Enthusiast
that’s a very cool story thank you for sharing! I unfortunately probably won’t go through with this after hearing your story
but maybe one day they will be easily assessable feeders!
yungzerk
Chameleon Enthusiast
i wasn’t planning on ever feeding the wild ones to him, i would just feed off the offspring that came from the adults but i won’t be doing this anymore, but thanks for the help!
AaQb420509
Member
Yea i got that , just i would think the babies coming from wild ones and if they do have parasites. It would possibly pass on to them , was all i was saying
ChamelaChameleon
Chameleon Enthusiast
You can breed almost anything wild caught without fear of parasites but you cannot feed the wild caught population. You move the eggs, ooth, or whatever is an offspring to a hatchery. The hatched feeder can be fed to the Cham. Remember almost anything.
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
I’m not sure that would be a concern. It’s a great question though. I hatched out several ootheca in the past without any issues and since I’m currently battling soil gnats again, think I’ll be getting some more ooths to hatch out. I was going to try mosquito bits, but mantids not only helps the gnat problem but gives some chameleon enrichment.Yea i got that , just i would think the babies coming from wild ones and if they do have parasites. It would possibly pass on to them , was all i was saying
yungzerk
Chameleon Enthusiast
i forgot to ask you, but when you had your mantis’s in the chameleon cage, did you ever see your cham eating them? or were they too tiny to see
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
They were big enough to see and I did see my chams immediately go after some when they saw them. The ooths hatch out hundreds of babies and it seems their instinct is to climb up high. The soil gnats went away for a long time, so they were effective. I took a few pics of them after they had grown a bit. No longer recall how many molts they had gone thru.
, thanks for the reply!! they look like aliens up close 
