I raised mantids for my cham. They can be kind of tricky to care for if you want them to last. The egg cases are about the size of a golf ball. Sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller. Don't let the small ones fool you, they can hatch out just as many, if not more than the large ones. You'll need a fairly large hatching conatiner. Key thing is to have a very very fine mesh cover over it. The store screen tank lids are too big and you'll have hundreds of mantis everywhere very fast. Also the kritter keepers slots are too big. Lightly mist the hatching container everyday unless the humidity is already high in the room. Once they hatch, allow them to dry out for 24 hours before attempting to feed. I'd suggest only feeding fruit flies for the first stage. Each mantis will eat about 2-5 fruitflies a day at stage one. Dump in flies twice a day. Keep container at about 50% humidity or a little higher. Mist lightly daily so they can drink the drops. Provide standing/stalking perches. A few twigs are good. Too many and they won't find the food. After about a week they will shed. At this time you'll want to try to put them in seperate containers. Large plastic cups works great. They will start to eat each other if left together. Keep feeding fruit flies for at least another stage or pinhead crickets. Be sure not to leave too many pin heads in with the mantis as they can gang up and kill the mantis. A full grown female mantis (common chinese species) can grow to about 2 and half inches. Males are smaller and slimmer. It's really easy to get a mantis farm going, each female will lay 3-5 egg cases, with 50-200 babies hatching from each one. Hope this helps

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