Stick Instect/Walking Stick Nutrition

[kgallego]

Hello everyone,

I currently have ~25 Indian Walking Sticks, and am trying to find the right plants to add to their enclosure that will supply them with all the nutrients they need. Right now I have a bed of roses (see picture below). They seem to be doing well on these, but the issue that I've had with roses before is that they eat the leaves faster than they grow.

I know that they will eat oak also, and it takes much less oak to sustain them for a while, but it's winter time and the oak trees are without leaves right now.

I'm also aware that they eat blackberry. The problem I've had with blackberry is that it doesn't survive under a 6500K bulb indoors, in a pot.

The solution that I'm looking for is a plant that fits these stipulations:

• Walking Sticks love to eat
• Easy to find at a home depot, walmart, or nursery
• Will survive indoors, possibly thrive
• Will grow leaves at a rate to sustain a decent size colony
• Not a rose, because I already have roses

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[little leaf]

I feed mine romaine - thats all - the eat it fine, and I have many now who started as babies on it, and are now laying eggs - manyyyyyy eggs- lol this it the "winter diet" - in summer they also get all the wild things they like too - the only thing, if you have new born , you have to cut the edge of the leaf -

 

[kgallego]

Interesting. What if you grew the romaine lettuce plants?

 

[sandrachameleon]

I cant imagine there is any plant that will grow fast enough to be permanently housed with stick bugs eating it.

I just cut fresh blackberry, raspberry and wild rose bramble and hang it in the enclosure, or put the cut ends in jars of water (generally stays fresh longer than it takes the sticks to devour). Romaine, dandelion and other leafy greens as well.

I did find blackberry and wild rose grew quite well indoors - I removed denuded branches from stick bug bin, and left them laying in a bin of sand (all of which I intended to dump in the compost). I didn't get around to dumping right away - and both the blackberry and the rose rooted and started pushing new leaves. This was just damp sand (no soil) previously used in a laying bin, no special lights.

be wary of using anything you find at home depot, walmart, or nursery - they are likely to have been sprayed.

 

[kgallego]

I cant imagine there is any plant that will grow fast enough to be permanently housed with stick bugs eating it.

I just cut fresh blackberry, raspberry and wild rose bramble and hang it in the enclosure, or put the cut ends in jars of water (generally stays fresh longer than it takes the sticks to devour). Romaine, dandelion and other leafy greens as well.

I did find blackberry and wild rose grew quite well indoors - I removed denuded branches from stick bug bin, and left them laying in a bin of sand (all of which I intended to dump in the compost). I didn't get around to dumping right away - and both the blackberry and the rose rooted and started pushing new leaves. This was just damp sand (no soil) previously used in a laying bin, no special lights.

be wary of using anything you find at home depot, walmart, or nursery - they are likely to have been sprayed.

Oh yeah, I thought of that (sprayed plants) when I initially received my sticks. I started out with 100 and even after thoroughly washing the plants in soap-water before putting them in the enclosure, it still killed off about 75% of my sticks. That was an epic disaster. Before I add plants now, I wash them multiple times and let them sit for a month before putting them in the enclosure.

You mentioned clover....that just gave me another idea. Alfalfa is from the clover family. It's also quick growing and lives year round. I might give it a shot.

Thanks for the comments Sandra.