do you feed crawfish to your mantis?

[Madmonkey]

I was just wondering if anyone here feed their mantis with crawfish?

I have a peacock mantis about 5.5 inches long, he loves to kill anything I put into the tank. So, I started feeding it live crawfish (2-3 inch ones) every other day.

Starting with the first crawfish about a week ago, my mantis does not eat the head portion of the crawfish. He tosses the uneaten head out of the burrow and looks at it. I did notice that the inside contents of the crawfish is gone but the shell is almost untouched.

Is the head too tough for him to eat? or is he just playing games with me?


thanks for your time
Matt

 

[RogueCorps]

Hi Matt,

You might be giving it more than it can finish. IMO a crayfish that size every other day is a lot of food. I give our 4.5" O. Scyllarus a small 1.5-2" crayfish very rarely and she's able to eat the entire thing including the head. I'm hoping that I'm giving her lots of calcium when she's able to finish shell and all, but her normal diet is prawns, squid, clams, fish and zoe soaked dried krill. I would rather give her marine foods since it's probably more natural for it.

The head shouldn't be too tough for it since they can eat their own molt all the way down to the hardest part of the hammer.

-Rogue

 

[Madmonkey]

thanks a lot, I think I do feed it too much.

I will experiment a bit in the next few weeks, see if once every 2 or 3 days would be better for it.