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| Home >> Toy Details and Reviews >> World Alive Praying Mantis Kit | ||||||||||||
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User Submitted World Alive Praying Mantis Kit ReviewsDate: 2008-08-29 praying mantis I purchased this for my 5 year old Grandson so he can learn how bugs are hatched and born. He was so Happy when the mantis started to come out of there nest. This also was a good learning experience for him, took it to his classroom for show and tell. Since they are not allowed to take toys for show and tell and told the classroom about praying mantis along with some printed coloring praying mantis for all the classroom. Date: 2008-05-19 Beware: The little guys have to EAT and food is a problem. I'm an adult and I'm struggling. I can't imagine what this would be like for a kid. I had over 200 hatchlings. I'm down to about 60 at first molt. They eat wingless fruit flies. These may/may not be sent with the mantises and there may/may not be an extra charge. Whether you get them or buy them, the supply is woefully inadequate. I started buying them at PetCo where 20 live flies are $[...]. The mantises can eat three flies a day each. I then paid $[...] for stock, growth medium, and breeding chambers to grow the flies - which take up to a month to produce a new generation of flies, and that's turned out to be another worthless, expensive nightmare. Fruit flies can eat fruit - but only when it's rotten. Rotten fruit stinks and gets moldy. Both flies and mantises can die from that. The mantises need to be indoors where it's warm, as do the flies so you can't just put the parts that stink outdoors. The live food that these guys need, and the food that the food needs, is a whole level of complexity and expense you may not be ready for. Finally, it is suggested that you separate the mantises into their own little mantis condos since they eat each other - especially if you don't have and abundance of other food for them to eat. I was fortunate to find small plastic jars. That still leaves me cleaning, adding a water source, and adding flies to dozens of containers. I spent nearly four hours Friday night cleaning everybody up and swapping out the fruit I've been using for the flies. A horse would be less work! You can treat this casually and basically kill all your mantises, and I suppose that would be a learning experience. If you want to come out of this with happy, healthy, full grown mantises, even a couple, you're going to pay a lot of money and do a lot of work. You may want to try the butterflies! Date: 2008-05-03 Know this before you purchase. You have to pay extra for the critters! I think the cost of the kit, toy, etc. is even over priced! Then to pay more for the insects is a rip off!! Someone is sure making money on this one! Date: 2008-01-02 Eggless in NJ My Nephew was very excited about this gift, but finding Praying Mantis eggs was very difficult. I couldn't figure out how to order them on the vendor web-site (I don't think they have them...go figure, sell the kit but no eggs or a suggestion as to where to get them), but I did find them at another vendor. They are on back order until February. So, don't buy this as a gift if it is the only present you buy. My Nephew doesn't mind waiting because I "packaged" it as something to look forward to. Date: 2007-12-14 ordering hassles I just bought this gift for my son and hope he will enjoy it. He has yet to receive his eggs so I can't comment on the kits success, however, I can comment on the hassle of ordering the eggs. Inside the kit there is an order form. They encourage E-mail orders by charging an additional $5.00 for mail-in orders and telling you it may take an additional month. I'm wary of giving my credit card information on line to a company whose reputation I am unaware of, so I tried to call them instead...and so the hassle began. The number on the order form is wrong (Sheraton, I think). I went on-line to the E-mail address they gave and couldn't access the site. I did a search under the company name and came up with another phone number. This was also incorrect. When I called, the person who answered the phone gave a simple "hello", so I thought I'd dialled the wrong number; when I asked if this was the number for praying mantis eggs he me gave another number and hung up. I called this number. The operator was nice enough but didn't know if they sold praying mantis eggs and starting checking through their catalog while I was on hold. Finally she came back seeming surprised to see that they did indeed sell praying mantis eggs. "YIPEE", I said, "finally", but only then was I told that they were out of stock and to call another number to see when they would be back in stock. Only as I was calling this number did I see it was the same number I had just dialed and I has again to go through their menus and be put on hold. Presumably to speak to the person sitting across from the one I had just spoken too. Anyway, after all of this I was told they'd be back in stock and ready to ship out next week. Turns out it SHOULD be just in time for Christmas, so it will work out well if they come as promised. Still it took over 1/2 hour to place the order, be prepared!
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