Omg Help!?

[Amzy Face]

i have indian stick insects.... and the pet shop near to me sells them, but it treats them very poorly and they are always deformed.. i bought one last week with half an anteni and very weak.. she seems to be doing fine now.. today i bought a new one.. and its not so good..

she seems to be about 3 months old and shes missing half an anteni and a leg... her front leg seems to be broken and twisted round and her tail is completley deformed, twisted and completley flat.. its also all black on the end.

its eaten a bit and drank... but its struggling to move properly and is in TERRIBLE shape. is there anything i can do to help save it?

ive put it in a seperate smaller tank so its alone.

its really upsetting to think they would treat their insects this way.. even worse that they sell them to people in this condition!? i will be gutted if she dies ='[

[les]

Someone more experience will be along to advise. What you really must do is report the shop to the RSPCA and to the local council. Pet shops have to be licenced so it's worth reporting. Also, maybe pet shops HAVE to belong to an association of pet suppliers, so follow that up to.

To be honest, the RSPCA and Council probably won't really care very much cos there only insects (in their opinion), but they HAVE a duty to follow up complaints - and you will get a reply.

Good luck!
Les.

[Amzy Face]

yeah ive written a complaint to them.. but like you said.. they only see them as insects.. theyre £1.99 each so its no loss to them =[ i honestly doubt they will reply to me.... im just going to go back every month and buy them out of stock (Y) hehe X

this morning she was lay on her side at the bottom of her tank not moving... when i blew on her softly she got up and crawled about a little... shes eating and drinking at least.. but if she stops doing that i think im going to put her out her misery =[

[Krendoshazin]

I'm afraid that wouldn't do much good, buying from the pet shop would only give them an incentive to sell more insects and perpetuate the problem. The best thing you can do for the poor things is to buy from a clean and reliable source; there are quite a few here who sell them in fact.

Personally I don't understand why the RSPCA won't do anything about it, insects are animals - they're living breathing creatures - and if you were to find a cat in there with a flat, broken, and black tail they wouldn't hesitate to throw the book at them. Are we going to discriminate because insects are small, short lived, and, apparently, insignificant?

As for your insect I'm afraid it doesn't look good, insects don't have very good healing abilities. If a leg is bothering them they just drop it off and grow a new one, or just do without it as mine is, but you can't grow a new abdomen. In nature the sheer amount of insects makes up for the lack of healing ability, and thus a particular percentage of the new generation will be expected to reach adulthood and continue the species.
It's funny how we take the ability to heal for granted, as if it's a prerequisite for existence. While learning about the insects I think we learn something about ourselves too.

[Amzy Face]

=[ unfortunatley when i returned home from collage i found her dead ='[ im going to take a photo and report it to rspca. the shop hasnt replyed to my complaint so. how can they justify selling soembody an insect like that.. whcih will last the whole of 24 hours!?

its really upset me =/ that theyre seen as worthless. just to shame the pet shop -http://www.prestwoodpetzone.com/

[Taz Devil]

I reported a store (Pets At Home) in Rotherham and the RSPCA did check it out. Unfortunately they didn't see anything untoward in the store, even though weeks earlier I found their stick insects in quite a bad way, 3 dead and the food plants (privet) was all dry and brittle.

I have yet to go back to see how things have faired. This time I have a better camera so can take better quality video footage if there is a problem.

[Carim]

thats really bad news Amzy, but as said before insects need their abdomen to stay alive since all the breathing organs are inside it :(

and as for the RSPCA, they need to start taking a better look at the world.
it really annoys me when so many people, even supposed vets and animal lovers, put furry dogs and cats first, even though they have been bred for human entertainment.
insects are the single most beneficial group of animals on earth, and so many more people need to start seeing that!

its the same in most pet shops unfortunately though, just because of the money factor, and people think ust because a silly domestic animal is "cute" its worth 100 times more than an insect.

and its ironic that so many charities do anything they can to help cats and dogs, when its these animals which ruin our existing natural ecosystems in the first place, and im sorry if any of you are owners of them, but in my opinion, pets should be kept within sight so that they dont do any damage, not roam free killing as many birds frogs and fish as they like, and leaving "dung" everywhere!

[spiny leaf-insect girl]

when i was getting my praying mantis they had about 30 exatosoma tiartum in a small tank with brown old bramble and about 7 were dead at the bottom but i did complain and they did nothing

people have to realise how facinating they really are and how much easier it is to look after than cats and dogs...........shame no one does anything about it:(:(:(

[les]

Terrible! I would have to get them some fresh bramble myself - even regularly if shop don't provide it.

Why don't you tell us (or PM me) what shop it is (if it's in London I'll call in and make a fuss, and take video). If I have the name of shop I will contact RSPCA and make sure they visit and I (we) get a reply from them as to what they are going to do about conditions there.

Oh, and I wouldn't buy anything from such a shop in future.

All the best,
Les.

[spiny leaf-insect girl]

i checked the shop again and there is a good sign theve decided to clean up there act and look after reptiles properly but i saw a chamelion in water in its tank with its eyes all funny ( it looked like they had been sucked in ) is it normal ? or have they not noticed that its dying?:confused:

[Ambergaze]

Even though it's sad to see animals in ill health or suffering you shouldn't buy them as this gives to pet shop a message that it's ok to treat creatures like that because people still buy them. I stopped buying stick insects from pets at home when the condition got unacceptable that that very reason. You could report the pet shop but that probably won't make much differeance as people have been saying the RSPCA/SSPCA don't show much interest in insects wellfare.
The missing legs aren't much of a problem for young stick insects as they often loss them anyway and as you'll know shed them back, the anteni are probably due to overcrowding as sometimes nymphs chew on others anteni when isn't enough food or too many insect in the one tank. I'v never had or seen any stick insects with deformities so I can't help you out there maybe she'll shed out of them but I wouldn't know.

[stickinsectgirl]

what pet shop is it called? im going on their website! How dare they treat a stick insect this way! And then think its all alright?!

[firedragon 1234]

It almost sounds like they are torturing the poor things. It almost makes me want to cry

[firedragon 1234]

I heard about someone else getting a stick bug from a pet store like that and the kinds where mixed up, and they were hurt and a lot of them where dead. It so sad... :(