Praying Mantids & Other Exotics » Hermsta's Geocities Site. . . Feeders & their care


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Feeders & Care
It is important to care for feeders as well as the actual pet. Feeders pass on their nutrition to your pet. The healthier the feeder, the healthier your pet will be in the end. You are what you eat after all! This section lists off some of the more common domesticated feeders used in exotic pet keeping, their pros, cons, and best possible care.

Generally, feeders that are not worms are better overall. Worms mainly consist of either mostly fat and water, or water and chitin. They lack an amount of protein.


Quick jump:

Crickets
Bluebottle/Greenbottle flies
Houseflies
Roaches
D. Hydei and D. Melanogaster
Waxworms
Superworms
Mealworms
Phoenix worms

FEEDER NUTRITION CHART




Crickets
Crickets can be purchased at your local pet shop, usually in three different sizes: small, medium, and large. I recommend the small for mantids of all sizes (L3/4 - adult) and for all herps. The larger ones can be more aggressive and are generally more bacteria infested. Because the small generally range from 1/4 of an inch to 3/4 of an inch, I buy 6-8 dozen at a time. The crickets that come in the to-go boxes are healthier than the bagged ones. When you get home, set up their enclosure: a medium sized Kritter Karrier with nothing but a paper towel on the bottom. Spray the paper towel down to get it moist and get the paper towel stuck on the sides of the container (reducing the chances of the crickets getting under the paper towel and making messes). Once the container is a bit moist, I take some old bottlecaps or plastic coffee lids and place some food in for the crickets. Just dumping the food directly onto the paper towel makes a mess so I put the food in a lid. Crickets LOVE fish food, dog food, freeze-dried shrimp, and peanut butter. Smear a little peanut butter with a knife onto the lid, make sure it is not a lump or too condensed otherwise some of the weaker ones can get stuck. A little bit of apple, strawberry, banana, orange, etc. are also good for crickets. Lettuce is not recommended since it has zero nutritional value. Carrots make mantids vomit so do not feed crickets carrots unless you are gutloading for herps. Crickets will also eat uneaten or discarded insect parts that the mantis didn't want. It is also not recommended to feed them dinner table scraps since it consists of heavy sauces and salts that may do harm to the internal gut of the cricket.

I introduce the crickets by placing the box (or bag) inside of the enclosure. I open the bag/box and stick my hand inside to get the crickets jumping. Some will jump out into the enclosure and begin running around. The ones that are hiding in the egg carton, I pick up the egg carton and give it a shake to get the crickets into the enclosure. I do not just dump the entire contents of the bag into the enclosure, as it introduces quite an amount of poo and dead bodies. I do not put the egg carton in the enclosure as it is easier to collect the crickets for feeding without hiding places for them and also makes them explore so they run into food easily. When all the crickets are in the container, they will start to settle down and notice their surroundings. You will notice that most will start drinking and or eating. At this time I leave them alone for 1-2 days and come back to check on them. If you have a high mortality rate within the enclosure, most of the crickets were bad and I suggest waiting an extra day to ensure that the survivors have cleaned out their system properly. If you have no deaths, you can start feeding your exotics. Take out any fruit that is going rotten and replace it as the food starts to run out.

Pros: Attract attention due to squirmy behavior, protein rich and low in fat, easy to care for when done right
Cons: Can bite, cannibalize, stinky when cage becomes dirty, do not live very long even with good care, if not "quaratined" after purchase they can cause your pet to fall ill

Special notes and advice: When feeding crickets, do not leave them in your pet's enclosure for a prolonged feeding. Crickets have been known to bite other insects and even reptiles. Some crickets have been seen eating the predator they were assigned to be eaten by. Designate feeding times and feed them one by one as they are consumed. If a cricket isn't consumed/is rejected, take it out. Also, when feeding mantids, I usually sniff the cricket as it is being eaten when some of its gut is exposed. Crickets that have bacteria in their gut smell bad when their gut is exposed. If the gut smells bad, I take the cricket away from the mantis.




Bluebottle and Greenbottle flies
Bluebottles and Greenbottles can be purchased via online pet shops. I have only recently started keeping bluebottles and am inexperienced so I have copied and pasted a documentary on care from mantisplace.com:

Blue Bottle fly larvae (re: maggots) can be stored in the refrigerator, but REQUIRE only minimal air, so keep them in the shipping container, in the medium they shipped in. When receiving Blue Bottle maggots, you can refrigerate the maggots and they will go into a dormant state, and will be viable approximately 2 months under refrigeration. Take out what you want to pupate; leaving them in the container (and in the stinking sawdust medium) they came in, at room temperature. Once they pupate, keep out what you want to feed off, and they will hatch in about 5 days. Due to the nasty smell, once they pupate, dump the pupae and media into a course strainer to separate most of sawdust medium from the pupae. Put the rest of the pupae back in the refrigerator, refrigerated pupae are viable for about two weeks. The adult flies will live about 7 days with honey and water. Once the pupae are running out, take out more maggots to repeat the process again. The challenge is in estimating the pupation time, and hatch time, without running out!

Pros: Are a flying insect so they stimulate most predatory instincts, excellent "filler" to fatten your exotics' tummy
Cons: Larvae are unattractive, pupae smell bad, hatch rates from pupae can vary from good to bad




Houseflies
Houseflies and their pupae can be purchased via online pet shops. I have just started raising these as a feeder. Order these as pupae, and when they arrive, separate them half and half in two 2 oz. deli cups. Place those two deli cups in a semi-large jar, and place another 2 oz. deli cup inside. Fill this cup with powdered honey (you can order that here) and some real bee's honey. The powder will help absorb some of the honey and prevent any flies from getting stuck and dying. Some people have had this problem. If you are having this problem even with the powder and real honey, soak or dip some bread in honey and place it in the cup. It should help stop the flies from drowning as the bread absorbs but contains most of the honey and the flies can drink directly from it.

The flies DO indeed fly! When giving them to your mantids, place the jar or container the three cups are in into the fridge for approximately 5 to 10 minutes. This will slow the flies down and will prevent them from flying. Quickly collect the flies you need and dump them in your critter's cage. As they regain body heat they will become active once more and start flying, so you must work fast or the flies may recover from their temporary lethargy and escape into your house. It is a pain to recapture escaped houseflies, even though most fly to the windows, so be careful and quick when you deal with them!

Also, taken from a documentary from mantisplace.com:
Housefly pupae can be stored in the refrigerator for about 7 days after you receive them from Mantis Place and stay viable. The closer you get to the 7 day mark, the less pupae hatch. We suggest that you hatch out all the pupae when you get them since the adults will live about 30 days with honey and water, which will double your viability.

Pros: Are a flying insect so they stimulate most predatory instincts, can be gutloaded on honey and honey pollen for maximum nutrition
Cons: Larvae are unattractive, escapees can be hard to capture




Roaches
Roaches are kept as feeders and can be ordered online. The most commonly sold are dubia and lobster roaches (non glass climing roaches), and different species are glass climbers, nonglass climbers, fliers, and nonfliers. I have never kept roaches as feeders personally since they are a bit squeamish for me and my parents would never allow me to keep them. However, I have compiled a bit of their care from documentaries.

Roach care is similiar to cricket care and they will eat just about any scraps you give them.

Pros: extremely active to attract attention, rich in protein and low in fat
Cons: a pain if they escape, "unappealing"




D. Hydei and D. melagonaster

Fruitflies can be purchased via petshop (usually in the form of D. Hydei in small vials) or via online pet shop in larger quantities.

The D. melanogaster or hydei fruit fly culture needs nothing but the right temperature to produce THOUSANDS of fruit flies. At 78 degrees you obtain maximum production, at 68 degrees you will keep the culture alive, but slow the rate of production. At 68 degrees the culture will last for months. Mold inside the medium will cause the flies and maggots to die. The medium of the culture can be prone to mite infestation. To obtain 78 degree temperatures, do not put direct heat on the culture as it will dry out the medium, reducing your culture’s life.

Pros: great for nymphs and smaller herps
Cons: can be unappealing, escapees are hard to recapture since they are so small, boom and bust cycles within the culture (you will be overloaded with flies in one point in time and be without them in another), mites can infest your cultures and drive you insane (but mites entering the culture can be controlled with mite paper)

Special notes and advice: You will experience many problems with fruit fly cultures: if you have 32 oz. deli cups as the housing for your fruit fly culture, you must poke some holes for ventilation. However, maggots will find their way out of these holes and dry up. There will be lots of dry, dead maggots on the lid of the container. The culture's medium may become soggy or sloshy and there is nothing you can do: putting it in the light may help dry out some of the moisture, but will speed up the rate of decomposition and your medium may begin to stink. My culture currently stinks because of the decomposing bodies and the medium, which was once a cream color, is now light brown (due to decomposition).




Waxworms

Waxworms can be purchased via petshop usually by 150 count. All you need to do is keep them in the container they come in. They are the larvae of a moth that doesn't feed. Waxworms are creamy white and have a soft body with no chitin, making them easy to digest. Waxworms feed on honeycomb and raw honey; however, since this is hard to obtain, most people do not feed their waxworms (and it isn't recommended either since waxworms are perfectly fine without food). They are viable longest when kept at 50 to 60 degrees (fridge), but I store them at room temperature. Make sure that the container is dry, as moisture will kill the culture. Dead waxworms turn brown and shrivel up. Dead ones should be removed upon discovery as they develop a nasty odor.

Pros: Easy to care for, loved by herps
Cons: High fat content so they should not be used as a staple but as an occasional snack, due to the high fat content some herps get "addicted" to them and will not accept any other variation of prey, dead waxworms smell HORRIBLE, most petshops keep their waxworm shipments to a minimum and you will find yourself with cultures that were shipped in 4-5 months ago with 50% of the 150 worms dead, POSSIBLE FOR YOUR HERP TO CHOKE ON

Special notes and advice: When feeding mantids, waxworms can be messy. Since they are mostly water and fat, when punctured, water and goo oozes out from the side of the worm, dripping all over the mantid's forearms and over the waxworm's body. For this reason it isn't recommended to handfeed with waxworms unless you don't mind getting your hands covered in waxworm goo. If your herps get a waxworm addiction, you must starve them for a little while (1-2 weeks) before introducing them back into a protein-rich diet. It is possible for your herps to get overweight if overfed with waxworms. Feed small waxworms to herps. Avoid the larger ones as they can CHOKE your herp.




Superworms

Superworms are large worms that get up to 2 inches and can be purchased at your local pet shop. They are the larvae of a beetle. I have never kept these as feeders so I have copied and pasted a documentary on care from mantisplace.com:

Leave in the medium they shipped in, and add a fresh split carrot to the top of the medium for moisture. Keep at 75 degrees - REFRIGERATION KILLS SUPERS. Will be viable for about 17 days.

I have read in various documentaries that superworms end up killing herps due to being too big for the herp to swallow and end up choking. Supers will cannibalize occasionally and are capable of consuming mantids.

Pros: Better for larger herps, easy care
Cons: Can choke herps, can bite or consume part of your exotic, are not a good source of nutrition

Special notes and advice: I do not recommend using superworms as a feeder.




Mealworms

Mealworms are smaller versions of superworms. They too are larvae of beetles. I have not used mealworms as feeders in a while but when they are purchasable via pet shop. When I had recieved them, I placed them in an old box of Quaker Oats and left them at room temperature. They seemed to do fine. A copy and paste of a documentary from mantisplace.com:

Leave in the medium they shipped in, and store in the refrigerator. Every 10 days warm up the mealworms to room temperature for 24 hours, and put a split carrot on the medium for moisture. After the 24 hours is done, pull the carrot off the medium and refrigerate. Mealworms will be viable for about 90 days using this system.

It is not recommended to feed mealworms to herps as they are high in chitin and low in protein.

Pros: Easy care
Cons: High chitin content and little protein

Special notes and advice: I do not recommend using mealworms as a feeder. The information that a mealworm can chew threw the stomach of a herp (usually lizard) is a myth; it is only caused by a dead herp being gnawed upon by a stray mealworm.




Phoenix worms

People claim that phoenix worms are the healthiest and best feeder out of all others. This is because the phoenix worm is naturally high in calcium and phosphorous. They do not drink, eat, or smell and can be kept at room temperature to last for months. They can be purchased via online and are the larvae of a type of beetle. I have only kept one culture of phoenix worms and the older ones become darker in color. I am not sure what the dead ones look like, but I imagine that they are dark in color also.

Pros: High in calcium and phosphorus, active to attract attention, don't bite, easy care, no smell
Cons: See below.

Special notes and advice: When I purchased phoenix worms, I was pretty keen on thinking that these worms were the cream of the crop. All sites said that herps loved these worms and that they were consumed vigorously. They arrived in a container filled with some brown dirt-like substrate that smelled like aspen. I fed a couple to my fence lizard who consumed them vigorously at first but quickly slowed down. She let them hang out of her mouth and didn't seem too keen on finishing the rest of the worm. My mantids even dropped the worms halfway through, even some of the more aggressive ones that always finished their meal. The next few days my fence lizard acted as if she was sickly. She constantly slept and her eyelids darkened. Then the following day, I found a clump of regurgitated phoenix worm around her favorite branch. Ew. I removed it and a few hours later, I found another clump. Looks like those phoenix worms weren't so great, aye? I stopped feeding them after that. I don't know why they have such a good reputation and I got a bad experience with them. You can try them, however, and give me feedback on how it goes. For all you tentative people, I'd say don't feed your exotics phoenix worms or you might find a regurgitated pile of them later on.




NUTRITION CHART


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