Praying Mantis Egg Cases - 2 Cases, Live Praying Mantises, Hatching Habitat Cup, Educational Kit for Adults & Children

I purchased these two oothecas and received them on March 25, one hatched April 15 and so it was approximately 3 weeks for mine or one to hatch. Both show signs of being fertile.You can poke down your ootheca once or twice with a needle, if secretions stick to it or it is compact to impale it is likely fertile. Dark fades almost always promise eggs anyways. If your ootheca indicates it isn’t fertile, keep your hopes up, the ootheca I had just hatched had a horrible gash at the top from our pet dog possibly chewing it… and it lived through bits of faint mold, and yet it jumpscared me by hatching over 70 little nymphs. Remember, oothecas are spawned to bizarre environments and are almost as resilient as nokias sometimes! 🤣I placed my oothecas by the straw to the mesh/holes atop container lids, and stuck a paper towel around the walls and misted them laden. Beneath the containers was a reptile heating pad. All in all worked.I purchased M WINGLESS fruit flies from a local pet store and they eat ravenously the next or two day, warning as they eat their siblings too..Feed them every two days, 2-5 fruit flies, and keep them in moist and welly warmed or room temperature terrariums and containers. Nymphs can easily be stressed, can escape and bolt out of sight in a heartbeat, dehydrate and drown in a droplet easily. Nymphs are extremely fast and active upon hatching, it’s recommended you have a net beneath the container upon opening it, or a bug vacuum at the ready, which I did :)I am separating many mantises to their own enclosures but am keeping half of the cup to the terrarium with captive bred springtails, isopods and ladybugs. I will release the rest to the hands of spring and the outdoor gardens. In the terrarium where wingless fruit flies had also been released and bred, they will eat each other and thrive, and the fittest will claim its home. I’m half experimenting with nature, half pet keeping, half garden controlling.. and it all works good.WASH ALL SUBSTRATE OR ELABORATED DECORATIONS AND CLIMBING TWIGS, ECT. IF FROM OUTSIDE, NEVER FEED PET MANTISES BUGS FROM OUTSIDE, RISK SPREADING DISEASES OTHERWISE.

This year was my third time doing mantids with my kids. The first was about ten years ago and everything went great. I had hundreds on tiny little predators all over my yard for months. The second time was last year and the chrysalis didn’t hatch anything. This year they again hatched dozens if not hundreds. I released them into my garden with my kids and they had a blast. It almost seemed as though the little mantids didn’t want to leave us. My garden is enclosed with chicken wire so they’re fairly safe if the stay inside. They can easily leave if they want to but I’m hoping at least a few stick around. There’s plenty of mosquitoes and flies for them to munch on if they do. Next we want to try ladybugs. It’s been a fun little adventure for my kids. I spoke with customer service a couple times last year and they were VERY helpful and exceeded every expectation I had. I’ll definitely be using their services again. Either for ladybugs, worms or any other beneficial garden guests.

I have had these for a month now and never hatched. Very disappointed.

The media could not be loaded. I placed the habitat on a ledge in my closet that stays around 70-72 degrees and waited several weeks... this morning I woke up to chaos. What I imagined happened - mantis’s hatch, cats hear scratching and knock habitat off ledge, habitat hits ground and the lid pops off, dog hears, dog eats remaining habitat and bring it back to bed (mind you it’s 6:00am and he sleeps with us), girlfriend wakes up “what the hell is that” me still trying to ignore it then see the habitat, like uuhhh... well the dog ate the remaining parts of the eggs (hopefully they’re non toxic to dogs 🤦‍♂️) and some of the twine stuff, me still trying to savage some of my Saturday morning tell my girlfriend “ah it’s ok just put it back or throw it away they haven’t hatched anyways... then the dramatic THEY HATCHED!!! Me - what? How do you know? Her GET IN HERE! THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!! So I spent the remainder of my Saturday morning plucking tiny little critters off of every surface in my back room 😂🤣😂. Rest assured this product works, and when you’re on the brink of giving up it’ll happen, and also the “how do I know when they hatch? Question” yeah don’t worry about that, you WILL know lol. They’re cute little buggers thoUpdate - I had two eggs, the one my dog didn’t eat, I threw in my garden and happened to catch the hatching process live! I missed the very end where the little guy crawls out but you can see the egg moving

Only one of the eggs hatched!

Mine hatched on the coldest day of year in south Texas 30 degrees today on the gulf of Mexico in heated garage of course will be buying more thanks

Not as pictured. If your choosing this over another bc the packaging is cute, don't. This arrives in a clear plastic tub. Hopefully these hatch!

I was pretty upset after waiting over 6 weeks for the hatching. But the seller let me know the consistent 75 degree+ temp is a factor and once hotter temps hit they all came out. Because of the delay I did not have fruit flies ready and had to release a lot... I suggest buying the culture and flies to be ready, even if you waste some it is a minimal cost. We are left with 1 mantis after the release and a couple other factors, and it is growing so big. I am happy with this purchase, I just wish I was more prepared before I committed to the purchase.