How to Care for a Newly Molted Katydid? Detailed Rearing Methods and Precautions
For a newly molted katydid, take care to control the temperature well, keeping it at around 28°C, and not too high. In the early stage after molting, feed it skin worms or oil cricket; after two or three days, feed it half a soybean or edamame (soaked in water or boiled) each day until it starts singing loudly. When feeding, it is best to take it out for a walk, bathe it once a week, and let it bask in the sun. When rearing katydids, pay attention to the following points:
1. Types of feed
There are mainly three major types of feed for rearing katydids, namely soybean (or green soybean), sheep liver, and carrot. The daily food must be kept fresh, prepared and fed on the spot; do not feed food left over from the previous day. Feeding should be at fixed times, once a day is enough, twice is better.
2. Feeding taboos
(1) Amount: A newly molted katydid's body has not yet fully hardened. Its internal digestive system is also relatively weak. Although it needs a large amount of nutrition, it must not overeat. Overeating easily causes food retention and harms the insect, and at the same time affects its appearance. Generally, after a newly molted katydid eats its old skin, the next day you can feed it one maggot worm or corn worm. On the third day, feed another one. From the fourth day, start feeding half a cooked edamame. After that, feeding an amount of food about the size of half an edamame each day is enough.
(2) Sweet food: When rearing katydids, try to avoid feeding overly sweet and sticky food, as it easily causes them to bite their own claw tips and break their antennae, resulting in defects and greatly reducing their ornamental value.
(3) Feeding location: Whether the katydid is kept in a gourd or a tube, it must be let out to feed. Do not put the food into the insect container.
(4) Avoid feeding food with too much water: Fruits with high water content, such as pears, watermelons, cucumbers, etc., are not suitable for feeding katydids. They easily cause diarrhea and unformed droppings. Besides feeding cooked edamame, you can feed a small amount of steamed carrot and scallion white.
Our country has had the habit of rearing katydids since ancient times, and prices range from a few yuan to several hundred yuan, with good varieties even selling for over a thousand yuan!