Praying Mantis Pest Control

One fine autumn day I stopped at a intersection where a large praying mantis dropped onto my windscreen. I took it inside the car where it cruised around my dashboard looking at stuff and checking out my dried bug collection that builds up in the cracks between the dash and the windscreen. I brought it inside and put it into my grow closet where is went about eating gnats and moths that had started to become a problem. After a few weeks I noticed that the bug problem had disappeared and the mantis was hungry so I set about catching spiders and whatever else looked good to a mantis. She would crawl to the top of the closet every day to be fed and became a good pet. I was able to carry it outside and get her to catch her own food before returning to my hand. After a few months she died but left an egg sack which hatched early next spring. Mantids are intelligent, they make good pets and I would recommend them for any grow room with a pest problem. Even keeping a mantis around for a week or so before being let go will significantly decrease if not eradicate pests in your grow room.

THAT IS FREAKING POETRY!!!! I love it. Mega REP+++!!!!

Fuck poisons. Id rather smoke a speck of mantis crap than have a bag full of DDT laced buds.

i will be watching for a MANTIS to interduce to my room in the summer. Good post it makes sence!!!!

great info i'll be on the search for them bad boys

http://www.arbico-organics.com/product/Praying-Mantis-Egg-Cases

Each praying mantis egg case will hatch about 200 mantids to help control pest insects in your garden or greenhouse. Mantids (mantis) eat various mites, insect eggs, aphids, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, caterpillars and other insects when young. The adult mantis will eat larger pest insects.

3 Egg Cases $8.95

Great for outdoor gardens too.

600 Praying Manti for under 9 bucks. If 300 of them were female and laid eggs 300 X 200 = 60,000. The average Praying mantis weighs approximately 5 grams 60,000 X 5 grams = 330 KG (727lb) If half of them were female and laid eggs there would be 6,000,000 or $89,000 USD worth of egg casings and a lot of mantis shit.

Awesome. Praying mantises are my favorite insect, since I was a child.

I bought 3 pods. Those asshole japanese beetles wont mess with my grapevines this year!

I had a praying mantis in my car and it started swinging back and forth then it jumped at my face. I almost shit myself. Lol.

Both manti are dead, I guess they can't live off nutrient water for long. My EC is 1.6, i think it might have been a bit too much for them. Oops. One of them was still a tiny bit alive which my cat ate, I guess it would have been like taking a multi-vitamin.

Downside is you can only have one in a area at a time. Eventually Darwin takes over and you will have one big ass mantis left.

If it only costs $9 for hundreds it would be fun to watch them battle it out for supremacy. I'm sure you could release them into your garden to have a constant supply of them. You wouldn't really need more than one per plant. A single mantis in an enclosed space is enough to keep pests at bay (as long as you can keep the damn things alive).

That is an awesome story! I'm going to go out and get one today I think.

I come across mantis egg cases occasionally in customer's gardens. I once watched as an egg case open and out popped hundreds of perfectly formed little manti. About the size of my little finger nail. Hopping all over. I think they're my favorite insect. I let the adults sit in my hand and crawl on my arm. They have a way of looking at you. They sway their heads back and forth. Maybe for depth perception or to hypnotize you...lol. But they are cool as shit.

I loved this.
That was one of the best paragraphs I've read on this site.
Thanks.

I know this is an old thread but i found these in my yard...wondering if they worked out ir would eat mites