Praying mantis EGG CASE!!!

[Leroux2008]

WOOOO My praying mantis pagoda came in today!! Im super excited!

I have it set up and I have the egg case in there.... I think ima cut some of my pothos and stick it in there so they will have a place to hide .....now to wait 3-6 weeks before they come out.


Ive read tehy have usualy 75-200 praying mantis's in there! Should I release a bunch into the chameleon cage when they hatch? I dont want them to eat eeach other but I dont want to release all of them outside and only keep a few =[[.... will they hurt the chameleons when the chameleons are sleeping?

 

[Texas Panther Man]

They are only a good feeder for baby chams at that size. If you want to raise them for several months then adult chams will go crazy for the large adult mantis. If you release them into an adults cage they will just die of starvation or kill each other until only one is left. Then he/she will die of starvation. So unless yu have a clutch of youngsters to feed your gonna have to seperate them after they hatch into small groups and feed them ff's until they get large enuff to accept cricks or flies.

 

[Leroux2008]

alrighty so you think like several small tubs like I would keep my crickets in would be good enough? Nah no little babies to feed.... I didnt plan on feeding my Chameleons them right now at this small but I didnt really know what else to do with them cause I know they cant stay in that one cage thing. I was thinking maybe release them into my chameleons cage and let them free roam in there with some smaller bugs they could eat. Ill just seperate them when the time comes like you said into small groups and try to raise them from there.

 

[Texas Panther Man]

The cheapest way to do it is buy a pack of deli cups and cut a hole in the top and screen it for ventilation. And if you get a decent sized cup you could put 3-4 per cup even 5 per cup. If theres plenty of perching areas where they can each have their own stick to hang out on. If you do 5 in eac cup your gonna have to feed em every day or they'll eat the smaller weaker ones.
After they molt then you can start feeding 2wk cricks and then flies. Good luck, seperating them without getting them everywhere is a pita.

 

[Leroux2008]

Eh yeah I see it being super difficult XD I just looked at a picture and their like EVERYWHERES!!! -_- Im scared to touch them too XD Ill get over that hopefully >> Ill prolly do that I think it was lll reptile I had seen that sold deli cups... maybe not idk Ill find something

anyways! Heres a picture of the case

 

[Leroux2008]

Its is crazy to think that that many fit in that little thing

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Yeah they will just start pouring out of that thing. Its crazy if you see it happening. Yeah they arent nasty or anything but they jump and you cant catch em without squashing them. You gotta kind of let em just climb up on your finger or whatever to put them back in their cage if they get out.

I put mine in the fridge for a few mins and chilled them then i worked on seperating them into groups. Made it alot easier. But still a pita. I ended up feeding all mine off to a pair of falys I have that Im raising. They loved the new feeder. Gives them something new other than cricks or ff's at that stage.

 

[Leroux2008]

ya I think when I am going to seperate them ill try to have someone else help me just in case if some do try to escape XD I might do it outside too because that way if they do atleast I wont have to be worried about them crawling on me while I am sleeping XD

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Yeah i chilled mine for about 5 mins in the fridge and then i did it outside in the garage. That way the spiders could have any escapees... lol

 

[Leroux2008]

lol did the spiders win or the praying mantis? prolly the spiders being that the mantis''s are soooo small when they come out 0.0 Did you ever get bit by any?

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Nah, they dont bite man. But When i was hatching the four cases i had I had some fire ants get into my plastic hatching bin. Those mantis went right after those ants! they tore them a new one too. I was amazed they could take down a fire ant as a newly hatched nymph. Neeedless to say I got rid of the ants and they didnt have to kill that many but as a whole they prob killed 50 ants that got in that container before I saw what was happening.

 

[Leroux2008]

well was watching some videos people commented saying they got bit before... im not sure if by the smaller ones but the larger ones. XD I could just see all thee mantises going nuts for the ants!

 

[clarkrw3]

Nah, they dont bite man. But When i was hatching the four cases i had I had some fire ants get into my plastic hatching bin. Those mantis went right after those ants! they tore them a new one too. I was amazed they could take down a fire ant as a newly hatched nymph. Neeedless to say I got rid of the ants and they didnt have to kill that many but as a whole they prob killed 50 ants that got in that container before I saw what was happening.

That's super impressiveGot to LOVE the mantis.

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Yeah it must have been the adults. Ive only fed off wc adult mantis. Ive never had the patience to raise mine up to that size. I fed them all off by their second molt.

 

[Leroux2008]

gah those guys are freakkkyyy! XD I dont think ima let them get that big... I just watched a video of a 6in mantis eat a 10in snake no prob.... I hpoe my chameleons can defend against those evil bugs XD

 

[Tune]

Sorry if I missed it, but where did you get your mantids?

 

[xanthoman]

mantis trivia

theres no reason to get freaked out handling the little ones, they rarely bite and you literally cant even feel it when they do. there is a pic of me about to be bitten by a 2-1/4" mantis in pic#4 of post#7 in this thread; https://www.chameleonforums.com/mantis-update-41137/ it did bite me, but its like getting lightly nibbed with a pair of tweezers, it doesnt hurt or break the skin or anything, the only reason it bit was because i pinched its leg. an adult cricket would likely deliver a worse bite, (although a 4" mantis could probably do some damage)
you might want to raise them in an aquarium for the 1st week, newly hatched chinese mantids can get through most window screen. bamboo skewers make good tools for wrangling and corraling baby mantids.
99% of young mantids will head for the window if given a chance. with a bamboo skewer, you can round up about a hundred baby mantids off of a window in about 10 min, without hurting any of them. the biggest challenge is getting them back in their container without any more escaping or getting squished. you can flick the sides of the container or even blow air through a straw to get them away from the top of the container.
baby mantids can drown in a single drop of water, so when you water, best to only fog/light mist, you dont want any full size droplets of water.
the one in the photo is 4th instar (molt), they grow expotentially with each instar.
mantis are a great experience and dont have a long term comittment like other pets.
no, unlike nasty crickets, they will not likely bother your cham while hes sleeping. although, mantis are a favorite cham delicacy, so its not likely any left in his cage, will make it to nightime.
a juvenile cham, could easily go through a hundred newly hatched mantis in an afternoon, so if raising as a feeder, you should give them at least a month.
one final note; ooths can be hard to come by june- dec, so anyone interested in raising an ooth this year, should get theirs shortly, (a good thing to keep in mind for anyone planning on neonates in the next 6 mths.) jmo

 

[laurie]

If you want hilarious you should have seen me when I thought one case was not going to hatch. I tossed it in the trash in the cham room. It hatched and i walk in to baby mantids everywhere. Catching them was a real joke. But i did have babies so i caught a lot of them. Right now I have about 50 that I am trying to grow to adults. They are about 10 days old.

 

[Leroux2008]

Hey thanx xanthoman for all the useful information!!! I have an extra 10 gallon aquarium I dont use but I really want to get them seperated so they dont eat each other.... how many do u think Ican keep in a 10 gallon without eating each other? Ill prolly put up some dividers and make 3 seperate sections in the tank unless I can keep more within the tank as a whole? I was gonna buy some tubs too and divide them off but I really dont know the best method of raising these guys... I want to save as many as I can!

Another question.... I got them today and on the package it says anywehres from 3-6 weeks.... how long do the fruit flies live? so I can make sure when I should order them and not have them die off on me.....

@laurie OMG!!! I would have been freaking out XD XD I would have been like okay... how to get in here without stepping on any??? I would have atleast thrown it outside just in case haha.... the parogonda enclosure thing.... do you guys think they can chew through it? It really doesnt look sturdy... its some type of cloth screen thing.....

 

[Leroux2008]

I have never heard of bamboo scewers and where can I find that at? I have these little yellow plastic tweezer looking things I was going to use for the crickets... but I found that I cant really tell if Id be squashing them or not... so I ended up never using them... I also tried grabbing super worms with it but its hard to grip a hard shell with them, they just slip right out of it XD