Praying mantis

The space involved and the time required in rearing food material are the most difficult aspects of mantid rearing. Mantids are among the more difficult of insects to rear. They are carnivorous, feeding in nature on smaller insects and other small animals. Rearing mantids requires rearing of other insects - such as vinegar flies or aphids - as food material (in large quantities)!

Small developing nymphs tend to become cannibalistic and require separation or isolation in the later stages. Adults will mate readily in captivity.

After mantids have completed their early stages, they may be fed insects larger than aphids and vinegar flies such as mosquitoes, flies, and roaches. Mature Chinese mantids readily attack, kill, and devour large crickets and grasshoppers. Some people like to watch the capture of this prey. Others like to collect adult mantids (especially females full of eggs), then place them in a large glass container (empty fish aquarium) and watch egg masses being glued to an inserted tree branch. After egg laying, mantid death usually occurs a few weeks later.

Egg masses, collected in September or October and brought into the warm classroom, have been known to hatch in early December of the same year. Then, large numbers of very tiny mantids will suddenly appear and, if not furnished fresh, live food, they will eat each other until only one or a few mantids are left. In the laboratory, the egg mass may be refrigerated for a few weeks, and then incubated at room temperature. Often, no refrigeration appears necessary.

My niece had a hundred babies mantis hatch at her place and she killed them. I can't believe she did this.
Someday she will have aphids eating her rose bushes and she will say,"Oh God sent me something to kill these beast!" and God will say " No you killed your life time supply when you killed the 100."