Our pets: stick insects

I had dogs for 13 years and before that a cat. When Freud died a few years ago it was such a harrowing experience that I decided I couldn’t go through it again. Not soon, anyway. I still miss him and our other dog Zeki. Now we’ve got four stick insects and these creatures are very low maintenance pets.

We feed them ivy leaves which I collect from just over the back fence. I pick long stems and stick them in water inside the insect habitat, that way the leaves stay fresh for days and I don’t need replenish them very often – usually once or twice a week. I take a peek to see how many leaves they’ve munched through and decide that way.

I bought them on eBay as nymphs which were sold as food for reptiles. These four little dudes made a very lucky escape 🙂

They don’t require walking and you can go away for a weekend or even a week and not worry about them. The downside is you can’t develop a relationship with them and they don’t do very much other than look like sticks 🙂

Posted

November 22, 2016

Journal

Rachel M

Tags:

insects, pets, stick insects

Comments

16 responses to “Our pets: stick insects”

Lana

November 22, 2016

I had stick insects when I was young. My brother freed them one day and replaced them with sticks 😦

Reply
1. Rachel M
  
  November 22, 2016
  
  Oh that’s so mean!
  
  Reply
Gemma Evans

November 22, 2016

I didn’t realise stick insects got quite so large. Had to laugh when you said they don’t do much other than looks like sticks! Haha!

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1. Rachel M
  
  November 23, 2016
  
  They were only about 1cm long when we first got them but I think they’ve reached their full size now. We may even get babies at some point.
  
  Reply
Steve Bloom

November 23, 2016

Those are just babies. The real thing. These sound like they might even have a bit of personality. They run around a lot and have pair bonding, which pretty much qualifies them as people, right? 😉

With the number of eggs in reserve, it might not be out of the question to get some in the near future.

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1. Steve Bloom
  
  November 23, 2016
  
  Eggs got lids! Who knew. Anyway, glad this video is still available. It may be a little quease-inducing at first, but I at least ended up really rooting for the little creature by the end.
  
  Reply
  1. Rachel M
    
    November 23, 2016
    
    I can’t see the video? You didn’t paste the URL.
  2. Steve Bloom
    
    November 24, 2016
    
    Oops. Here.
  3. Rachel M
    
    November 26, 2016
    
    That is very cool!
2. Rachel M
  
  November 23, 2016
  
  Those are huge and although Australian, I have never seen one before. There are plenty of stick insects out in the wild in Australia that I have seen but they’re mostly the green ones but maybe they’re not stick insects? I’m thinking of the praying mantis. I loved those creatures. It’s too cold for them here.
  
  Reply
Steve Bloom

November 23, 2016

OT: Per his NYT interview Trump cares about Aberdeen! Because golf course. Apparently he’s less clear on the fact that the North Sea is connected to the rest of the ocean and so might have a sea level rise issue, but take what you can get.

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Denise

November 23, 2016

I think we had them in primary school. They are fascinating, especially because (I think) it’s so fascinating to watch them camouflage themselves. I like Elizabeth’s kilt. I think it is very sweet. Do your kids have Scottish accents yet?

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1. Rachel M
  
  November 26, 2016
  
  They are starting to develop an accent, especially Elizabeth. She says “booook” instead of “book” and she’s started rolling her r’s 🙂 It’s very cute.
  
  Reply
Eli Rabett

November 25, 2016

Contemplating living things is always awe inspiring and peaceful

Reply
1. Rachel M
  
  November 26, 2016
  
  I agree. There’s some pretty amazing creatures on this planet.
  
  Reply
The stick insects have been fornicating – RachelSquirrel

February 7, 2017

[…] week I discovered lots of little baby stick insects in our stick insect habitat. We started with four nymphs which I purchased on eBay last year and they ate lots of leaves and grew and they must have laid eggs at some point because now there […]

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