Mantis
- Thread starter Vince
- Start date
dodolah
Retired Moderator
if they are going to be in your jackson's digestive system, then why buy the expensive and exotic ones?
Buy an ootheca of European mantis or Chinese mantis in your local nursery.
They should be around 5 dollars/ ooth.
Incubate the ooth and mist once in a while, you will have lots of mantis to feed your jackson as treat. You can raised a couple, breed them, and get more ooth later. But, usually, when people do this, they ended up feeling attached to the mantis and soon they become a part of your pet family
. They are quite fascinating insects.
Vince
New Member
if they are going to be in your jackson's digestive system, then why buy the expensive and exotic ones?
Buy an ootheca of European mantis or Chinese mantis in your local nursery.
They should be around 5 dollars/ ooth.
Incubate the ooth and mist once in a while, you will have lots of mantis to feed your jackson as treat. You can raised a couple, breed them, and get more ooth later. But, usually, when people do this, they ended up feeling attached to the mantis and soon they become a part of your pet family
I dont have a local nursery were i can buy these... where else can they be purchased?
dodolah
Retired Moderator
you can also purchase online on a lot of gardening website.
I know ebay sell mantis ooth. Chinese mantis and european mantis are considered beneficial insect. So, these are legal to purchase.
Be aware that the ooths are seasonal.
Mantisplace usually have them available most of the year.. but, her price is a tad bit pricey. But, Rebecca is a great person to do business with though.
I know ebay sell mantis ooth. Chinese mantis and european mantis are considered beneficial insect. So, these are legal to purchase.
Be aware that the ooths are seasonal.
Mantisplace usually have them available most of the year.. but, her price is a tad bit pricey. But, Rebecca is a great person to do business with though.
Vince
New Member
Thanks for the help!
OldSkoolxReasons
New Member
There is one downfall to mantis, you have to feed them other bugs. If you plan on getting a whole ooths you are going to need 100 feeders every other day for probably 3 months to get them to a good size for your jacksons. When they are young little fruit flies and pinhead or freshly hatched silkies suffice but ones they get older they need one decent sized feeder a day. Also they sometimes cannablize each other. if you want to keep them all in the same enclosure, which makes feeding and everything easier and less time consuming, search for a species that is not cannabalistic. I know she has atleast 1 or 2 kinds that aren't. I just forget the names of them. Once I got chinese mantis and had them in a 3x3 enclosure once they were all month old and I found atleast one eaten a day. Some of them seemed to like eating their brothers and sisters more than any of the food I offered. trust me it will be worth the extra $15 or so dollars to get a non cannabaliztic species and then start breeding them. Then as long as you have enough food for them you can have up to a hundred near adults in a 4'x4', 75 is a little more realistic though. They breed super easily also and I haven't seen a cham not eat them yet. I wish I still had my colony but my screen cage got ripped open by a squirrel in the summer and all but a few escaped into my yard. Good luck.
Justin
Justin
OldSkoolxReasons
New Member
Yeah, it was a bad incident for me because I lost more than a couple months worth of treats for my chams. Although there are plenty of chinese mantis in michigan and it's legal to release them I still felt bad because when I went to collect cicada's I found plenty of them in the grips of these mantis that escaped. I don't thin it's legal to release anything besides euro and chinese mantis here so be careful as they will infest our yard if alot of them get out.
OldSkoolxReasons
New Member
Well mantis do not need to eat every day like alot of people say, or every other day for that matter. They will just grow at a much slower pace if you feed them every 3 days. They only eat one bug per feeding usually but they can eat more. I chose to feed every 2 days just because It was a hassle putting one bug in every individual deli cup when there were probably 200 delicups with one or two mantis in each.
sandrachameleon
Chameleon Enthusiast
I noticed the ones I fed less often grew slower and lived longer that other that hatched from the same ootha.
OldSkoolxReasons
New Member
Yes the ones that ate less did seem to grow slower, the first batch I raised I fed everyday and I do not believe that it helped them actually. They grew superfast which was good in a feeder sense but every single one of them died off a month before a single one in the second batch died and they hatched out 3 days apart. I believe that the second batch had a longer life because they were not forced to grow at an accelerated pace and were able to live a longer normal life before they started to mate. The main thing I found out was that keeping them from maturity the longest without compromising their health, by feeding them less and keeping them a little cooler, helped them live longer because the stress of breeding didn't come on so fast. Once they reach maturity and begin to mate the females condition seems to deteriorate after an ooth or two and without monitoring the mating the males were killed by the females about 50% of the time even if the females had a full stomach before they began. I'm going to search the net and see if there is a caresheet that explains how to get you mantis to live longer. I bet it includes feeding them a little less.
Justin
Justin
Digby Rigby
Member
Predatory feeders
When we first started looking at mantids to be used as feeder breeders one of the first things we tried was giant red eye spiny katydids. These will eat any mantid they are hardcore. They had everything that was undesireable in a feeder breeder. They had to be housed individually and all the eggs didnt hatch out at the same time and needed a diapause. We had some eggs hatching out two years later.
We did find some Mantids that worked rather well considering their predatory nature. The qualities that feeder breeders need to have to make them practical are: 1) They need to be able to be kept in groups. Individual housing is not practical. 2) They need to be able to breed year round in order to produce a continual supply. 3) They need to be able to be easy to get food for. 4) They need to be reasonably prolific. 5) And be readily eaten by what they are to be fed to.
We did find a couple of species of mantids that fit the bill. They were prolific, could be kept together, even the nymphs provided enough food and space was made available. However they were rather small I think getting a little over an inch as adults. Also they bred all year long not seasonal.
Digby Rigby _______________________
When we first started looking at mantids to be used as feeder breeders one of the first things we tried was giant red eye spiny katydids. These will eat any mantid they are hardcore. They had everything that was undesireable in a feeder breeder. They had to be housed individually and all the eggs didnt hatch out at the same time and needed a diapause. We had some eggs hatching out two years later.
We did find some Mantids that worked rather well considering their predatory nature. The qualities that feeder breeders need to have to make them practical are: 1) They need to be able to be kept in groups. Individual housing is not practical. 2) They need to be able to breed year round in order to produce a continual supply. 3) They need to be able to be easy to get food for. 4) They need to be reasonably prolific. 5) And be readily eaten by what they are to be fed to.
We did find a couple of species of mantids that fit the bill. They were prolific, could be kept together, even the nymphs provided enough food and space was made available. However they were rather small I think getting a little over an inch as adults. Also they bred all year long not seasonal.
Digby Rigby _______________________
xanthoman
Avid Member
mantids
every spring i hatch one chinese mantis ooth (probably the easiest and most prolific) in a 10 g aquarium,(usually produces about 100-200) and once they hatch , i leave a producing culture of hydei with a bamboo skewer and a 1/4" hole in the lid. its usually enough to keep them from eating each other until they are big enough to eat pinheads, baby dubia, and then on to house flies. i am currently raising 5 orchid mantis but they are too difficult to raise, pricey and beautiful to be used as feeders.
every spring i hatch one chinese mantis ooth (probably the easiest and most prolific) in a 10 g aquarium,(usually produces about 100-200) and once they hatch , i leave a producing culture of hydei with a bamboo skewer and a 1/4" hole in the lid. its usually enough to keep them from eating each other until they are big enough to eat pinheads, baby dubia, and then on to house flies. i am currently raising 5 orchid mantis but they are too difficult to raise, pricey and beautiful to be used as feeders.
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