mantis feeding question

hopefully ill be getting one of these turds in the next few months, as its become basically my favorite animal

my question, while i have it at the top of mind, is can i throw a buttload of snails, hermits, etc in there and let him rape/kill/pillage at his leisure, say if im out of town? or will he just own everything at once?

 

Not sure on this as I have NO experience with Mantis' but it would sure be fun to watch what happend if you put all that in at once. hahaha

 

I don't think it'll go after everything at once. It'll probably give you a couple days of (pretty expensive) food.

 

Depends on the mantis. Usually they are fine, but sometimes they will go on killing sprees and kill way more snails/crabs than they actually need to eat, and will store the dead animals in their den to consume later.

 

i put a half dozen astrea and ceriths in not too long ago. mine did a charlie manson for a day and wiped out 3. left the others for his next impression of hannibal lector. . which was spread out over a few weeks.

 

I had the same experience last week when I was going on vacation. I place 12 hermits, and 10-15 nerite snails. My Mantis took out 4 hermits and a couple nerites on day 1. 10 Days later I have 2 hermits left and 7-8 nerite snails. Seems like she has slowed down a bit.