Raising baby mantis

Has anyone ever had a mantis ooth and once it hatched tried to raise every single one of them?

Let's say you did. Your ooth hatched and you have 100-300 babies. Now what do you do? Let's also say you put them in a big enough escape-proof container and give them all the requirements. There is still going to be some cannibalism but if your intention is to try and get as many as possible to a size suitable to sell, then how would you keep them?

Would you keep each one in its own separate container? How do the pros do it. At let's say you don't have access to a greenhouse.

I'm just curious.

i had 2 chinese mantid ooths hatch with about 300 babies each. unfortunately i thought they were dead ooths and was on holiday so i had about 10 survivors.
none made it to adulthood.
im not too good with mantids. i feed them fruit flies and bluebottle flies which i have grown from maggots to make sure they arent contaminated, however i have kept 8 so far (except the chinese mantids from the ooth) of which 6 died at l4-l5 for no reason, running around one minute, paralysed the next, then they die. i have had one recover from this paralysed state only to molt and die a week later. the 8th one was the first i ever had, and was the opposite of the rest, it was a peacock mantis male which survived to adulthood, displayed constantly, then well outlived its expected 4 or 5 months of post molt lifespan and lived for 9 or 10 months as an adult.

if you can find an ooth for under £10, its worth it. its a bit harsh but if you have too many put them in the largest cage you can with a constant supply of fruit flies, then all of the weak mantids will be eaten by the larger, healthier ones, and then you can just remove them when there is a managable amount and put them in individual pots.

or get a ghost mantid ooth, there communal-ish!

i would love to get a really big greenhouse and grow various plants and stuff and let a selection of things loose in there. mantids, stick insects, grasshoppers, butterflies, moths, and a green tree python

It's impractical to try rearing each one in its own container. Mantids need a great deal of ventilation as well, so whatever container you have will require a mesh lid.

Cannibalism can be reduced but not eliminated with a large enclosure providing ample hiding spots, structures to hang from for molts, and prey. Then it comes down to:

_scorpio_ wrote:

its a bit harsh but if you have too many put them in the largest cage you can with a constant supply of fruit flies, then all of the weak mantids will be eaten by the larger, healthier ones, and then you can just remove them when there is a managable amount and put them in individual pots.

Unless you have the patience and spare time to tend to 300ish vials, placing two or three fruit flies in each once or twice per week, then graduating them to small crickets as they grow.

Alternatively, you could sell them off as soon as they start dispersing from the ooth. I've seen up to five or six shipped in a single container without cannibalism (a large wadded-up paper towel provides enough hiding places for a few days).

if i find a cheap ooth im going to try this because i cant raise them when i have one or two so i will try raising 50 and see if i can get 5 to adulthood.

i have a big (expensive, i have no idea why i bought it) mesh chameleon cage which is 1m x bit less than 1m x err... 1.5' ish.
i can either put it really tall and narrowish. a bit shorter and a bit wider, or really short and lots of ground area (well, more lid area for them really).
what i think im trying to ask is will they all stay at one level? if there all going to sit on the lid i will probably sacrifice height (but not so much that they cant molt) for space at the top so they can spread out.
now i need to find a chinese mantid ooth on ebay...

Ive raised both Tenodera sp. mantids and Mantis sp. mantids, and its an extremely rewarding feeling when you finally raise some to maturity but it takes alot of patience and a mindset which can deal with losing most or all of most of your hatching oothecas. Mantises are my first love and the animal which got me into not only studying insects and spiders, but got me into the sciences when i was a teenager. I consider mantises among the very hardest insects and spiders to succesfuly rear. Its like trying to grow exotic flowers. A real labor of love. I prefer the vial method myself. As soon as the mantids hatch seperate five at a time into foam topped vials with five drosophila melanigaster (spelling) and let nature take its course. I prefer long vials which can be obtained from carolina scientific. (great web site if you ever get the chance)
stick in a cue tip so they can climb to the top and a wet cotton ball on the bottom to keep it very humid as pretty much all mantids need things quite moist when its time to molt or they will suffocate in there exuvium. Some will die on there own and some will be devoured, but the strong will weed out the week and out of a hundred you should have fifteen to twenty survivors which you will than take more personal care of. Once they molt three to four times i like to move them to tuperware or critter keeper style individual containers where They will have more room to grow and have some greater space to live in. In my experience its all about the right humidity. Mantises are extremely touchy and will pass away for seemingly no reason at all. youre just going to have to experiment with the environs in which you keep them and use species specifications as your guidlines. They get a little easier once they are old enough to eat crickets. If you really want to take good care of each individual that make a terrarium (even if its small) with a real plant inside and a large light that they can all share. I like to use the reptile bulbs which put of nice uvb.
I actually have severl oothecas of m. religiosa waiting to hatch this year. ive tied them all together. here is the whole bunch of them: