Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What would you folks consider to be the most difficult thing about raising mantids? Housing lots of babies? Raising crickets? Keeping female mantids from eating males before copulation?

For me I would say it is housing them all and making the conditions optimum for them. I lead a busy life and doing all the mantid chores can be time consuming. Crickets are easy so the feeders are not a problem. But watching the mantids makes it all worthwhile especially when they snatch up a cricket.

For me most of the mantis casualty happened during molting so housing is a real challenge Rick was right about that. The most exciting moment in rearing mantids are hatching, mantis turning to adult, mating (why not!), mantis laying ooth, and (last but not least) when mantis snatching up the food 8 )

After a little trial and error I have got the conditions right and I have not had a bad molt in some time.

I find the hardest part is getting the male to mate with the female without the female killing him.
Making all the housing for the mantids(especially nymphs) is just tedious...

Thanks,
Andrew

Yeah I agree. Nymphs can be a pain.

That's why I have been trying to find an inexpensive, but effective way to raising the young mantids before I start a breeding project. I think my biggest challenge is going to be giving the mantids a set photoperiod.