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My mantids are hatching!

Lil Stinkpot

Lucky Greenhorn
And my camera is dead!:rant:

I picked up a wild mantis ootheca while out camping last week. Lacking a better place to hatch it, I stuck it in my LL Terra/ crabitat. Believe it or not, it worked, but then I found that I had dozens of little hatchlings loose in a 100-plus gallon tank. Nuts!

I pooted. No, really! I made a pooter, in about twenty minutes, out of an empty juice jug and some plastic tubing. Note to self: make damned sure that jug is dry before use! To keep from inhaling/ingesting a mantid, I stuck a wad of mesh in the approprate end of the mouth tube. One of the little babies got stuck, but I freed it later.

Thinking back, I think it was too soon for the flies, but I guess it's too late now. :-O But the flies are escaping out the top of the critter keeper! Dory had to hold the cage and repeatdly bang it on the counter as I rushed to fit a paper towel liner. I'm not going to admit how many flies got out. :-))

I need a new camera. *pout*
 
Sorry to hear about the camera! I just bought my new one two or three weeks ago and I saw an ad at work tonight where they're going for $40 less than I paid. :(

Yeah, baby mantids will be scared of the flies at first. In a day or two they will be hungry and FFs won't be scary to them anymore! LOL If you get some mosquito screen to put over your kritter keeper it should help keep 'em in. Try: KK Base/sheet of mosquito screen/lid of KK snapped down over the screen. The mantids will like the screen too so they can hang upside down.

You'll need to buy a couple cultures of FF. Check ebay for large cultures in 32oz bug cups (check your PM for more info) those little tubes won't last ya for nuthin'. You'll need lotsa flies to feed all those little mouths. Feed out of the cups in rotation so no cultures are completely empty. Upwhiz just hatched an Ooth not long ago he can tell ya how long they'll be on the fruit flies and how much they eat. I haven't hatched an ooth in a couple years myself. I've been doing it the easy way, buying a few at L2/L3 and going from there. If food gets scarce they will eat one another so if you run outta flies you'll still technically have "food"... lol
 
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