Have you released a praying mantis in your yard ?

[In_The_Wind]

I'm going to place an order for 3 eggs.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Journeyman]

1. We hatched praying mantises one year. Quite interesting, while it lasted . . .

Shortly after they hatched, they all left the yard. Can't say if they ate many bugs or not on the way out; they were only there a few short hours.

[Rollo]

3. That is typical of mantises...

After hatching they tend to migrate, perhaps to the next yard or yards. I guess it's some sort of population protection strategy. Because, you know, they will eat each other if kept confined.

I put a mantid egg case in the back yard here some years ago. One of them, as I recall, actually grew up and may have returned. I remember seeing an adult in the yard a month or two later.

Mantids are very cool, and generally beneficial. Although I've read they can predate honey bees as well as nuisance insects.

[ret5hd]

6. Sounds like the answer is to put the eggs in the neighbors yard.

[luvs2sing]

2. Many years ago..

We had mantises in our yard when I was a kid. My dad built a big cage for a pair, and all the neighborhood kids would come by and feed them grasshoppers. We had big, healthy mantises. In the fall, we would have an egg case, which dad put in the rose bushes. The next year, we did it all again. It’s one of the weirdest memories of my weird childhood.

[Midnightwalk]

4. Yeah I brought home some "cocoons" once when I was a kid

From the marsh and shoved them in a box in the mudroom.

About a week later my mom was screaming her head off like bloody murder. The mudroom was crawling with what was probably 100s but seemed like 1000s of cute little praying manitises.

They dispersed outside pretty quick. I saw praying mantises around their house for years later. Maybe they were always were there, but now I really knew what they looked like.

Mom eventually got over it .

[elleng]

5. Not I, but did 'catch' this, a while ago!

[In_The_Wind]

7. Beautiful.

Thank you

[Kali]

8. you probably mean 3 egg cases, not single eggs

each can hatch our a couple of hundred mantises, of which maybe 20% will make it to adulthood. I have never purchased them but we have them in the yard - especially in grasshopper years. the females will have a very swollen abdomen and the males will be more stick-like. they will learn to drink a drop of water from your finger if you are patient.

[In_The_Wind]

10. Yes, 3 egg cases.

I hatched some 20 years ago at our old home.

Last summer we saw a Walking Stick hanging around here.

The yellow jackets were chasing us out of the back yard. I would like to avoid that if possible.

[GemDigger]

9. If you have hummingbirds

I would be cautious. They are known to also eat small birds.