Breeding your Praying Mantises

Identifying the gender

Before you dive into breeding your Praying Mantises, you need to know their genders by visiting here.

Breeding

A male will usually be ready to mate two weeks after he becomes an adult, and the female will be ready to accept the male about three weeks after her last molt. Because of this, it is ideal that the males complete their last molt a bit before the females.
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If you are mating your pair in a smaller enclosure, offer your female to enjoy an all-you-can-eat-buffet of crickets and flys before putting your two mantises together. In a larger cage it is slightly less important, but I still recommend feeding your female more than normal just so that she does not eat the poor little male. Yes, that actually happens. It happened to me and it will eventually happen to you.
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Males:
When a male is on his last molt before becoming an adult, a male’s appetite slows to almost nothing. When they were young, they could go two days without food, now the males can go seven. This also goes for when they are adults. Once they are adults and are ready to mate, the males can successfully mate for two months before they become too old to care. If your male is healthy, he will survive for a month or so after becoming elderly.

Females:
Throughout the female’s whole life, they must eat almost every day, only lasting two or three days without food. When they are pregnant, they must eat only crickets or Speckled or Lobster cockroaches, and mealworms because they are filled with nutrients. Try to avoid flies and other lower-ranking feeder insects. The more the females are fed, the larger and healthier the oothecae they produce will be. Once the female is large and can eat no more, she will lay her ootheca.

You do not have to mate your female with another male for a second fertilized ootheca since she will lay at least six fertilized oothecae after one mating. Don’t risk your male’s life for no reason!
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Do not drop a large female, or this could easily damage her seriously.

See our other guide, Praying Mantis Pet Care for further information on the ootheca (egg case) and nymphs (baby praying mantises).