My first little stickies (Indian)

[Twiggy]

Oh man... I was not expecting this. I have had a couple of Indian sticks (found near my work) in a large Goldfish bowl for a few months now.

On the bottom of the bowl I have had some of the small black rocks that were originaly in the bowl. When I first got the stick I did some research on them (never having a stick insect before) and found that the eggs were viable from a female. So I started collecting them every time I cleaned out the bowl (and then I would wash the rock off to get rid of the poo and other eggs. I eventualy stoped collecting as I thought I had enough (80 or so).

Since October I have had the eggs I collected in a plastic container with paper towl and I would spray it when needed (as per what I have read on this great site).

Well... no hatching from my collected eggs... but when I went to spray the stick in the bowl this morning... oh man... since the last cleaning about a week ago... 4 new sticks... how cute they are. Oh man was I excited... I hadn't even noticed them... the whole offce (I keep the stick on my desk in the fish bowl) was crowding around to see the new babies. How cool is that?

So I guess I didn't clean out all of the eggs when cleaning her bowl. I am getting a larger enclosure for them asap.

I'm a daddy... One of my workmates (who has helped me keep the stick and collect the eggs) was hugging me and jumping up and down as soon as she saw them. You would have thought we had had a real child.

Cheers,

Kevin :)

[Taz Devil]

Congratulations on your new brood. Be aware that Indian sticks have a very high hatch rate and around 99% WILL hatch so you'll need an extremely large enclosure to cope with the little uns.

[Twiggy]

I am going to set them free... free... free.... no just kidding. I am cleaning the rocks a little more thurogh and still have the 80 or so in a plastic container. Once they start to hatch I will be giving some away. This weekend I will be getting a larger enclosure, most likley only keeping 15-20 of them.

I cleaned the bowl today and found 5 of the little buggers. It amazes me how small the ova are compared to the size they come out at.

Also, I have started a facebook club called 'We all love stick insects' so if your a facebook member check it out.

Kevin

[Doug]

Hello there, I have 2 Indian sticks that were bought from the pet shop a few months back now. There were 4 originally, but 2 died for some reason.

Anyway, the thought of baby sticks hadn't crossed my mind really and when we were cleaning out the tank, there were no signs of eggs.

Imagine my surprise then when, on Sunday there was a single, very very tiny baby stick insect wobbling about the tank!
The egg must have been in the oasis sponge ...stuff where the bramble leaves are.

I do hope there will be others to keep it company, but I need to know, is it ok to keep it in the same tank as the adults, and do I need to feed it anything in particular??

Thanks.

[Twiggy]

Its fine to keep the baby sticks with the adults. I am new to this but have had no problem with having adults and baby sticks together. It actualy is best to have an adult so the baby sticks can eat where the adult has adready chewed (the area an adult has already eaten from is more tender than an uneaten edge).

As far as others... they have a 90%+ hatch rate. Thats exactly what happened to me as I had black rocks in the bottom of my enclosure (I would wash them weekly) and all of a sudden I had baby sticks. So I changed out the rocks for paper towels so I could better keep track of the eggs. I have now 23 sticks (all from 1 mother) in different stages of development.

So keep an eye out for more eggs and destroy the ones you are not going to hatch. You dont want to be carpeted with sticks!

Kevin

[Doug]

Thanks, yes it would be very sad if there was only the one, but I genuinely have not seen any eggs at all, which made the appearance of this baby such a surprise (all it shows is that I must be doing something right at least).

I will have it in with the adults, thanks.

[Doug]

Good news, there are now 5 or 6 of them at least (one amazingly was found on the shower room ceiling, where the tank had been placed briefly after it had being cleaned out), and I am now starting to see what I assume are eggs.

Let the good sticky times roll!

[Doug]

Update:

We cleaned out the main tank with the adults in it today, transferred some half eaten/nibbled leaves to the babies, etc etc, and we found all the eggs in the tank - the place was littered with them!

We put the eggs into their own little tank with wet kitchen roll, etc, and I counted 23 of them (although I was getting help moving them over, so there my be more still hiding away in the folds of the paper - I didn't really want to touch them much in case I damaged them).

Anyway, at least 23 (the same amount as you, how odd!), plus the 5 babies that have hatched so far, and then the 2 adults, we will be swamped by them!