KEEPING A PRAYING MANTIS AS A PET

No...! I did it first. It was me. It was me! Let me see this... One day ago... five days ago It was me. I'm the original rose gold like iPhone hair, not her. Not her. Hey, what's up guys? It's Taylor and yeah, I don't know if you've seen it, but yeah, Kylie Jenner has rose gold hair and you know she gets credit for creating it when she was me. I created it. I am the only creator. I invented hair color. It didn't exist before me. I really hope my sarcasm translates well to all of you. Yes, I know I didn't invent this hair color.

In fact, when I finished it, the lady who was doing my hair, my stylist, told me that she had seen it at Fashion Week and that it would blow up in about a month and be the next new color. So I was like I was ahead. of the trend and boy was she right because four days later, Kylie Jenner invented the hair color that she had. So yeah, Kylie Jenner copied me. I'm sure, I'm sure she saw my photo and took it to her stylist and told her that she wanted it. It's not like she's at Fashion Week or anything.

It's not like she has those kinds of connections. It's not that she likes fashion. She really likes caring for animals and she saw my rose gold hair and wanted it. Actually that's what it was. Anyway, today I'm going to talk about

praying

mantis

care. Obviously I'm not in my room. I just wanted a table. I really wanted a table to put my stuff on for this video because trying to do it on my bed would be really difficult. So today we are going to talk about

praying

mantis

es and how to care for them. Basically, today we are going to talk about how to set up a praying mantis terrarium.

Setting up a praying mantis terrarium is actually one of the easiest things in the world because, as you know, they are not very big and don't need a lot of space. Basically, you want it to be taller than it is wide. You really want the enclosure to be at least twice as big as it is wide and about three times as big as it is tall. The best and simplest way I can explain it. For example, if you have a baby or a young praying mantis, any type of juvenile. They fit in a little cup like this.

This is a very simple mug. All you need is a substrate that, uh, Eco Earth really does the best with coconut fiber... Eco Earth. and then you need some sticks so they can climb and perches so they can hang upside down when they are ready to molt. very simple setup, you want it to be somewhat ventilated so they can have some air flow and circulation in their tank, and it won't be completely rigid and they still do well at room temperature, you don't need to, you know, give them a heater or something like that and as long as they get some kind of light, even if it's just your bedroom light, they'll be fine.

You definitely don't need a lamp or anything like that, one of the best things you can do. What you can do for your praying mantis cage is simply recreate the environment they live in in the suburbs and cities. You will find praying mantises in gardens because that is where they like to live. For this video I have a Budwing mantis, which is one of the most common mantis species, and I'm pretty sure it's a male; I'm not sure yet. I'm still not sure that you can't keep a male and female together for their entire lives if they decide to mate, the female will eat the male when they decide to mate so it's fun.

It's really best to limit it to one mantis per enclosure. They don't fight or get territorial or anything like that, like I said when I was a juvenile mantis. This is a setup perfectly suited for smaller species of mantis. In reality, this will be fine all your life. They won't require an upgrade, but I'll actually give my praying mantis an upgrade. For today I ran out of Eco Earth. I need to buy more, so I won't have enough substrate to make it really thick in this container. I'm just going to use what I already had in this container here.

This is how to set up a praying mantis container. I wouldn't really use a rounded fish tank because they like to climb and if it's all rounded they won't be able to grab the sides. I really like the octagon hexagon ones. Those types of shapes or the cylindrical shapes where they have the top and bottom to grab? When you are setting up their habitat, the first thing you should do is lay out the substrate. I might have some fruit flies in here so I hope they don't fall off. So on a stick I have Moriarty, here he is.

I call him Mo or Mori but his name is Moriarty and comes from Sherlock Holmes. The name comes from the villain of Sherlock Holmes. I named it that because my tarantula is called Cerise, which is what I would like to call the villain in Game of Thrones. And that's why I wanted to keep the trend and give my other Animal "creepy bug", another villain name. I'm going to put it in the container now because I don't want to lose it while I prepare this. Or he doesn't want to be in the container. He wants to keep me, he's fine then.

So when a praying mantis molts, this is what a praying mantis molt looks like. They literally look like a flexible version of themselves. Sorry for my very dirty nails. That's really gross, but I didn't realize it was like that until this moment when it was from digging in my cages. I really have to take good care of my nails to keep them clean. I just go. to go ahead and pour all of this into the container. Here is the container so far with Eco Earth in the background. The next thing you want to do is decorate it and recreate its natural habitat basically.

I wouldn't really recommend getting your decorations from your own backyard because you don't know what it's been in, you know it has some kind of bug or pesticide treatment, or most people don't really know what's on their plants and their backyard. and things like that. So it is best to buy fake things. I mean, they still look cute and I don't have to worry about them disappearing. Anyway, let's decorate it now and yes, I have some cool leaves here. I'm just going to put some things in there. And you just want it to be a place where he can have a lot of opportunities to climb.

Some places where he can. hide. That kind of things. It's a little hard to see, but it's there now. It's on this side. When it comes to tank covers, you have a few options. I have all three here with me. First, you could make a normal cover like this. The big problem with this is that you will not have circulation. I would really recommend poking small holes in something like this if you're just going to use a regular lid. The following options are these, there is actually a difference between these two. Things that this here is a cover like this, but this center here is covered with wire as you can see, you can see through. but it has holes in it, so you could do something like this.

But if you're going to feed them things like fruit flies, which you will, that's what they eat. There is a possibility that they will come out. So if you're going to do this during feeding, I would put the regular lid on top like this to keep the fruit flies out and this is the one I use which is a regular lid instead of mesh. We are using a cloth, almost paper towel material, and this is my favorite because even during feeding it can always stay on and the fruit flies can't get out. But the cloth material allows ventilation to pass through and that is how you make an enclosure for a praying mantis.

That's really all you have to do. Do it for the enclosures if you don't want to look for all these materials at Walmart and Target and things like that, you can always go to websites and get them there. I bought these fake flowers. I mean it was called that. mantis place or something. But I'll put it here and put it in the description and they also sell prey mantises. So if you don't know where to get one. I have never ordered a praying mantis from them or any website. So I'm not saying I personally know how it goes when you do it, I just know that it's available there.

It is about feeding from juveniles to young adults, they can eat fruit flies. , and that could be their staple diet, and they will be fine. You can also feed them treats like honey and things like that that they like to eat too. When they are older they will be able to eat Dubia cockroaches. I would stay away from crickets, crickets can kill predatory mantises because they cannot digest them properly. And it's just not fun. instead, I would stick with Dubia cockroaches, larger species of flies. Things like that. So yes, you really do have some options when it comes to food. fruit flies have been the easiest for me.

I have seen tremendous growth in my praying mantis every day. She sheds beautifully, she does it very well and all she eats are fruit flies. When the time comes, they don't live as long. In terms of life expectancy, they live between four and nine months. And that's it. I think only a few species live nine months, and that's at most. So you won't see that very often, but I mist my mantis cage lightly about three times a week, I only like a small one. a little squirt and that helps you get water on top of that.

You will get all your water by eating your fruit flies every two weeks. Simply refresh the cage and give them some new Eco Earth. Just make it a little brighter and cleaner, and that's really all you have to do. You know when they are going to molt because they will usually hang upside down from the top of their enclosure. Just don't feed them during this time. They are going to refuse food and you want there to be lots of fruit flies. Staying there while they are moving will stress them out. Thank you all, I hope you enjoyed how much you like this new light.

My new lighting is very pretty. my strap is twisted Oh, I hope it hasn't been that way throughout the entire video. No, no, no, she's a girl! Kylie Jenner stole my hair. This is happening.