Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well...it has been a busy couple of days around here. Yesterday I got got 5 unicorns in the mail along with a culture of roaches to use for starting a breeding colony. I had to make a run to Omaha.....1 hour away.....to get some supplies and to build the roach cage. That took a good portion of the afternoon and then before I knew it...it was time to head to work. I work graveyard shift at a factory.

The next day another order arrived that completed my collection. It included 5 African Mantids and 5 Giant Indian Mantids. This was two more then I was expecting....I think he sent two extras to be sure. I got to looking over the set up and didn't like mine......so...off to the store I went again! LOL

I ended up buying a bunch of rubber food containers and I converted them into small cages. This took most of the afternoon. Anyway...it has been alot of work...but it has been fun. I most certianly have my hands full.

I have made an interesting note though. The only mantises that haven't eaten yet are 1 African and ALL 5 of the Unicorns. They haven't even shown any interest yet. Hopefully that will change soon.

Oh...I almost forgot....I was sent a freebee with the first order too...an egyption mantis. Agressive little guy...he ate right away.

later,
rahl1972

Yeah I hear ya. Had some of those days recentely too. I have my hands full also. Just had an ooth hatch so I now have over a hundred new arrivals.

Unicorns, Giant Indians, Egyptians, extra mantids... sounds like you def. were doing with Orin! (MantidAssassins) He's by far the best person I've delt with as far as ordering inverts. He wrote the book on mantids too... literally. That great E&A book titled "Praying Mantids: Keeping Aliens", he's the author of it. Anyways, my unicorns didn't eat right away either, so take my advice, take all live food out of the container, and let it be over night. The chances are, they're going to molt any time now. Thats exactly what happened with mine. Also, make sure the container you have it in is not too big, otherwise it will be hard for them to get to the food at such a young age. I still have mine in the cup that they were shipped in which will be ideal for at least 2 more molts! Good luck with them!

Yeah...I got my unicorns and egyptiam from Orin. I can give you a little bit of an update. I went and picked up a fruitfly culture at Petco and introduced some of them insead of the small roaches and crickets. They went started eating immediatly!! That is so strange. The small roaches that I was trying with the unicorns and the others were being totally ignored by the unicorns but were being attacked and devoured by the others. Go figure. I'm sure that will change in time though. As far as housing....I have moved them into small plastic rubbermaid food containers. They seem to be doing well. Thanks for the advice.....I might have to buy that book.

Later,
rahl1972

Yeah, I'd def buy that book. You could even get it right off him for like 10 bucks or so. Yeah, fruit flys are what I feed my unicorns as well. I didnt' know you were going with roaches, or else I would have mentioned that. I hate the flies from PetCo. Simply because they say "Flightless" right on them, and as soon I opened the container, a huge cloud of them came flying out and infested my house. :-/ Now I acutally have several REAL flightless fruitfly cultures, and they are much better. They just crawl around and have no wings. Fruitflys and crickets are the only things I feed my mantids, except for the larger Chinese Mantids, which I feed the occasional captured moth or other bug.