Giant thorny stick insects as feeders?

[pssh]

Hello, just wondering how Trachyaretaon bruekneri are as far as food goes? Nutritional details? Any experiences? Just curious

 

[sandrachameleon]

Assuming they are eating bramble and other leafy greens, they are decently nutritious. Nymphs are quite prickly and adults are too big for most chameleons to eat confortably.

 

[Ricardo]

Can you buy em for a cheep price??? Here they are quite expensive and hard to purchase!

 

[Lizardlover]

I wouldnt feed that species, just becasue of the spines, there are other spiny species however that arent spiny at all when nymphs.

 

[pssh]

Awe poop. I was told they weren't spikey.

 

[sandrachameleon]

They do have "thorns" so you have to be careful about it.
But same goes for the legs of grasshoppers/locust, some roaches, mantids... and the shells of beetles arent exactly soft either.

 

[pssh]

I see. Are the 'thorns' hard?

 

[sandrachameleon]

I would describe as "rigid".

If you want to use a phasmid as a feeder, use Indian Walking Sticks.

 

[pssh]

Illegal here, although this guy gave me some that he got from UC Davis and said he didn't know what kind they were. They look like Indians to me, but who knows. maybe I'll find a native species. How are giant walking sticks? They look smooth.

 

[sandrachameleon]

I've never had one myself, but I've seen them at the local bug zoo. They are smooth. But they truly do get to be giants - very long - so only the young ones would work as feeders

 

[pssh]

Fun pets I bet. scare the daylights out of most visitors

 

[Ricardo]

These phasmids are quite soft when nymphs (1-4 sheds). As i remember they start to grow their thorns after a while, but its also different spec.-by-spec. The giant ones are all the same when the are joung.
In the zoo, the reptile house took loads of indian sticks for their lizards (i used to work in the bug house for years).

 

[pssh]

So wait, they are spiny or they aren't?

 

[Ricardo]

with the species i worked with they could be spiny, but after a certain age. But try with the ones that not gonna be spiny at the adult form, then there is nothing to worry about!

 

[pssh]

Well, Hyperion and Pan went crazy for the bulky nymphs. The spines were softer and smaller than the legs of a dubia so I went ahead and fed them. They have a very strong grip on biovines though... I guess not any stronger than a hornworm or dubia.