Gurders Mantis

Fruit flies are the staple diet of mantis nymphs, which are very easy to culture or can be purchased. I use a very simple recipie of mash flakes and a chunk of mangoe, most of the time they produce plenty of flies. I culture 2 kinds of fruit flies Drosophila melanogaster which are smaller species that can fly and Drosophila hydei that is quite a bit bigger but can't fly.

Here is how I make cultures - There is umpteen recipies out there to try but I have found this way very good.

Things you need - a tub of your own choice ( I use a coffee jar with the middle of the lid cut out with a soldering iron), some mash flakes, mangoe, kitchen towel and some fruit flies.

Step 1 - Add a half inch (approx) layer of mash flakes to the jar, then add some chunks (I use about a quarter of a mangoe per culture) 

Step 2 - Fold a sheet of kitchen towel in half and place over the top of the jar and screw the lid on

Step 3 - Add flies (50+), I use a larger pooter to transfer them from another culture.

After a couple of weeks your culture should look like this and be on the verge of producing loads of flies for your nymphs

Various fly pupae are available from fishing tackle shops and can be hatched to feed mantids. This is my main source of food for most of my mantids, I hatch them in various different containers and feed them honey & pollen before giving them to mantis. There is 3 different kinds of maggott that can be bought these are Squats which is house fly pupae, Pinkies are greenbottles and normal maggots are blue bottles.

To feed my mantis I use various different kinds of pooters, I have 1 with a small tube for fruit flies and 1 with larger tube for blu and greenbottles.

Always used plain white not dyed.

Brown field crickets and Locust are available from most pet shops and various places online but I prefer feeding roaches to my mantids. The roaches that I am currently using are Blatta lateralis  Turkistan roach.

Waxworms are also available and can be fed as worms or can be left to pupate and feed waxmoths to mantids which mine all love.