I just found my mantis ootheca hatched! they are chinese mantids, and I have no idea how to feed them. I have them in petri dishes of 4-9 mantids per dish, please help! I cant get pinhead crickets or fruit flies where i live, so i need help X_X Any help, ASAP, is needed extremely bad! IM me if you can, i need help asap X_X
Need Help Now!!
- Thread starter Nivek
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2004
- Messages
- 212
you should be able to get some fruit flys and pinheads sent to you from an online retailer. or is their a law stopping you?
well depending on how many you have you need to split them up into seperate containers and then will reduce the numbers them selfs, very canabalistic if their isn't much food present. (you also need to seperate because alot will be killed by having the head eaten off but nothing more)
if you can get some small wax worms, magots or small meal worms you could feed them them, try at you local fishing supply store!!
good luck.
well depending on how many you have you need to split them up into seperate containers and then will reduce the numbers them selfs, very canabalistic if their isn't much food present. (you also need to seperate because alot will be killed by having the head eaten off but nothing more)
if you can get some small wax worms, magots or small meal worms you could feed them them, try at you local fishing supply store!!
good luck.
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2002
- Messages
- 2,927
Allowing them to cannibalize is the best option at this point. If it were spring, you could raise a few of them and release the rest, but it's too cold for that. Chinese mantid ootheca can produce hundreds of nymphs, rearing them all is just not practical unless you have unlimited time. I'd just split them into a bunch of groups and allow them to eat one annother for now and start working on getting pinheads or flies mail order.
Wade
Wade
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2002
- Messages
- 716
Mist them often, and hope that some of them eat each other(otherwise they will all starve). Also keep them cool (50-60 degrees) until food is available. Finding a source of flightless fruitfly cultures that already contain adult flies, and having them shipped overnight is basicly your only hope. Expect a 50-99% loss within the next 3-4 days otherwise. T. sinensis hatchlings desiccate very easily and also starve very very easily compared to most other mantids, so it is very important to have established fruitfly cultures ready before they hatch. Good luck.
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2003
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- 319
I sent you a PM. Hope it helps.