Stick insect ova and baby!

[Andee]

XD

 

[Twitchet]

I guess matching a replacement stick insect is easier than going around petshops trying to find a replacement for a hamster or budgie when it expires
Sounds like a nice idea for your daughter- i remember my sticks i had as a child, so exciting when I found an egg!
Love the story about the 'I don't know'

 

[Andee]

I loved insects as a child. I had a wild caught butterfly who I kind of rehabilitated for about I wanna say 2 weeks (though I was only like 6-8 or something it was super long time ago) and she never had a cage. I had a freshly picked flower for her in water every day that she ate off of and I fed her a sugar water mixture off my fingers every now and then. Sometimes I would just sit on a porch outside with her. She was amazing. She eventually left on her own when mom left the back door open and she decided it was time. It tore me up but I also was more ok with it than likely most kids would be. Because she was never really MINE, I was just taking care of her as she got ready to leave. She was a monarch so it's so cool to think maybe somewhere her offspring are out there because she had a good start and was able to put on some extra weight and energy without expending too much on the search for it. <3

 

[Andee]

So I sent in my order for my similar new (larger) cage like you have Remkon. Not huge probably a little smaller than yours. But I can easily switch the larger nymphs over when they are bigger. I am slowly getting over run though with nymphs (I usually get at least three every day, often more). I have run out of deli cups to keep them in and will likely be putting an emergency order into Nick to get more until my cage comes which will not be happening until next month. So I desperately need something XD. I prefer keeping at most 5 in one cup. I I know have 7 in one and it is killing me trying to change their foodplants and makes sure they are misted twice a day. They move too damn fast. My death count is now up to 5 I think. But I think I am well passed 20 sticks now. I have a combination of rose in their cups and bramble (mamas are getting it too). When I can I will likely get the mamas some new oak too because we should have some really fresh stuff since the rains.

 

[Remkon]

I'm still getting 2 or 3 a day too, I just put them all together.
When i have to clean em out ill just flip the cage zipper up and slowly remove all ivy picking off sticks. I may have to start using the larger cage since I must be nearing 70 sticks now.
I havent seen any deaths in the cage yet.

 

[Andee]

I think the only reason I am having more deaths than I would definitely like is because the grow out cages I have are getting too cramped and are definitely not hanging well as far as molting. It's frustrating. I mean most of the little ones are doing great. It's just I know without a doubt they'd do better with more space and height. *hits head multiple times* I did not expect them to be as thin as they were XD

 

[Twitchet]

70 sticks, that's great news, let's hope Wurma likes them, my xanth does.
What I want to know is why oh why when you try and select a nice big stick for feeding and you try and pick it does it immediately drops to the floor yet when you are cleaning out and there's one on a twig and you try and get it off does it hold on like gorilla glue!
Because mine are on bramble I keep the old bramble in there and add new and let them transfer their way across on their own, then I can just remove the old stick, bramble is a pain, literally, but it's cleared up by the sticks and quite easy to see whether there are any left on there or not.

 

[Andee]

For my vietnamese insects if any old leaves fall to the ground I just leave it there, otherwise I just clean the old sticks out and replace them with fresh stuff whether it's oak and whatever. The interesting thing I have noticed about vietnamese insects is the adults eat dried up leaves, as long as they get misted regularly while they wait for fresh stuff they do fine. The babies won't do that. But I don't remove the old leaves for a completely different reason. I have realized when I remove the stick insect eggs from the enclosure they do much more worse for me then when they are just inside the cage and naturally incubating in the leaf litter and getting misted every now and then when I mist the adults. I have had much fewer successful hatches from when I remove them and try the usual incubation method for the eggs and a lot of the time the babies have issues with their legs after hatching. When they do it naturally in the big stick enclosure they have fewer hatching issues and less injuries.

 

[Twitchet]

That's very interesting, its actually what I have done, because the bramble is so spiky I got to a point there the leaf litter and debris had built up so much I couldn't clean it out so I just left it there thinking I might get serious and clean they whole thing out in one go but the leaf litter has been the perfect hatching ground and I had lots hatching, I am not sure how well I will do trying to keep eggs in a pot and hope the conditions are right to get them to hatch, I like them doing it naturally and seems better like you have found.

 

[Andee]

I think as long as there is enough leaf litter on the ground it provides some sort of incubation like thing just like it would in the wild. I think they do a lot better in the more natural setting. I think my females turned of sexual maturity only like 6 months ago and usually the shortest time for incubation for vietnamese is 8 months? But I think the fact that the eggs get a regular day and night cycle because of the adults and get misted almost every day, it's made hatching faster but still healthier.

 

[Remkon]

I have no leave litter yet, I put in long branches of ivy and put the basein water so it stays alive, works great so far, I only wonder what ill do when thry need new food.

 

[Andee]

I just learned vietnamese won't eat ivy. But they eat everything else that Indians pretty much eat, so you probably have something there that you aren't even aware of XD.

 

[Dave Bolamperti]

If he I just learned vietnamese won't eat ivy. But they eat everything else that Indians pretty much eat, so you probably have something there that you aren't even aware of XD.

I've been able to keep my Vietnamese alive with dark green Romaine over the winter till my raspberry comes back here in Nebraska
Good luck
Dave

 

[Andee]

That's odd I have a rose plant that is safe to feed (it's been in the ground for over 8 years) and bramble in my back yard. I also have ever green oak near me. I am pretty sure they eat mulberry too if I get desperate. So I am one of those lucky few who have a ridiculous amount of things where I don't need to go too far to feed them ^^

 

[Remkon]

Walked in to the cheap as f store today and walked in to coffee jars... So now I have this for my mamtises:

 

[Twitchet]

Like the name of that store
We dont have that chain of stores here.
I've got a tiny exoterra ready but i found a great photo the other day of plastic boxes like that with multiple mantids being kept- it looked like the sort of thing I'd like to do for raising them for food, easy feeding methods for the mantids etc too, I'll try and find it.
Got my phyllocrania arriving soon! The man that sells them is a photographer and keeps up to 30 species of varoius at a time- jumping spiders etc too. so sounds like a good contact.

 

[Andee]

Jumping spiders are so amazing <3