Oratosquilla oratoria is a common economic marine crustacean in China, which is known for its umami taste and high nutritional value. Due to offshore environment destruction and overfishing, the capture production of O. oratoria no longer meet the market demand, making it urgently important to pay closer attention to artificial culture. However, the pond culture of O. oratoria always showed defects in growth rate and gonadal development, and thus promoting its gonadal development had become a key technical problem in artificial culture. To solve this problem, this study investigated effects of different diet and water temperature on the survival and growth of O. oratoria during the overwintering period. In total 600 individuals (initial body weight: 21.99 ± 4.86 g) were used for this study, and sixteen samples (8 males and 8 females) were randomly selected and anatomized for each group on the day 0th, 45th, 90th to explore the influences of two kind foods (content of clam and frozen fresh fish) under two different temperature named natural (7.7 ℃ to 13.6 ℃) and heated (17.1 ℃ to 20.9 ℃) on the survival rate, body length, body width, body weight, gonad index, muscle index, and total edible rate. Results showed that: (1) The survival rate of the water heated group significantly decreased compared to that of natural temperature group (P < 0.05), which implied water temperature was one of the most important factors that influenced the survival rate during the overwintering period; (2) The body length, body width, body weight and other biological indices of O. oratoria kept an increasing trend throughout the whole process, without any significant difference found between any each groups (P > 0.05), and the best feeding pattern on growth effects was group of frozen fresh fish at natural temperature, while the worst was group of clam at natural temperature; (3) the gonad development condition under natural water temperature was better than that under heating water temperature in winter, and the optimal gonad development condition was achieved in group of clams at natural water temperature, with the gonad index 14.53% for females and 7.69% for males; (4) The muscle index showed an increasing tendency during the whole process with the highest muscle index (31.75%) detected in group of frozen fresh fish at natural temperature. For the edible rate, the only finding of significant difference was between the groups of clams at natural temperature and at heating temperature, respectively (P < 0.05). The highest edible rate (39.96%) was achieved in group of clams at natural temperature, while the lowest (36.08%) was found in group of clams at heating temperature. (5) The interaction results of different diets and water temperatures showed that diets had significant effects on ovary index (P < 0.01). In general, natural water temperature, especially ranging from 10 ℃ to 13 ℃, could meet the basic requirements for the growth and fattening performance of O. oratoria in winter. Compared to frozen fresh fish, clam was more beneficial for the substance accumulation in gonad of O. oratoria.