BREEDING
After mantids become adults you should wait atleast 2 weeks until you pair them up. You must feed the female and male both very good, as much as they can eat before introducing them together. This is done so the male and female dont look at each other as potential prey, though most of the times its the females that look at the males as prey. When the mantis is ready he will climb on the females back and when he feels ready he will start mating, after the mating process is completed you must seperate the male from the female so the female does not kill and eat the male. After about 2 weeks the female will lay her first ootheca and lay a few more ooths every few days. I always reccomend you keep your eyes out when mating any species!

CARING FOR NYMPHS
When a ootheca hatches you should seperate each nymph into individual containers A.S.A.P so they dont eat each other. This really depends on the species, for a chinese mantis i would reccomend this, for a dead leaf or any other exotic flower mantis, it might be better to just keep them in a 10 gallon tank with a heat mat because they require higher temperatures than other species, you throw in a bunch of fruit flies and when the nymphs feels ready he will tackle and eat them. When the mantids reach L3 you can then put the remaining nymphs into individual cups or little containers, thats when the whole mantis process becomes time consuming,you need to make sure each individual nymph has all the humidity, temperature ect it requires. Its an excellent hobby and you learn about a cool and fascinating insect.