Extatosoma tiaratum hatchlings

[Muleyyy]

one of my extat nymphs, the smallest seems to have difficulty biting the bramble leaves in the enclosure, is there anything i can do to help it? i can see it going for a corner bit where the leaf is really pointed and working side to side and then it comes away with not much leaf? whats the deal?

[Ben.M]

Sometimes when they are small they just cant get through the leaf so just trim round the edge of the leaf and it should be fine.

[Muleyyy]

i've tried that, but the little bugger never goes to the same place twice, plus the other ones are going through the leaves quite greedily now, should i try separating him?

i had annother hatchling that arrived with them but that one was able to eat the leaves ok, this one seems to just do alot of running about

[robsorchids]

its common for young nymphs to have problems getting there mouthparts into foliage, if you cut around the leaves, this will allow the edge to be soft enough for them to take there first meal, alternatlively if you add a larger nymph of a hardy species to help soften the edges of the foodplant then the ET will edges allready chewed away to feed from

i wouldnt worry to much about the others competing for food, the nymph will find its food eventualy, i have seen some hathclings sit in the same position chewing the same area for hours, they do get into it eventualy.

mine are all kept with larger eucalyptus eating species (when young of course) which allows them to have softened areas to chew from

rob

[Muleyyy]

it seems to tug and work at the leaves and then come away with a tiny scratch on the leaf, its in with 3 other nymphs of the same species, and they have all outgrown it now

maybe i'm worrying unnecessarily, and its eating from where the other nymphs have been when i'm not looking, but whenever i've seen it having a go at the leaves it seems to struggle, i think i'm just a bit hyper sensitive cos the biggest sub adult dropped dead unexplicably about a week ago

UPDATE:
for the record...
the foodstuff was the problem, i aquired some eucalyptus and some more hatchlings and they are feeding just fine on the eucalyptus but are more reluctant to get into the bramble leaves, dispite the eucalypt being thicker and tougher, maybe is the hairs on the leaves that bothers the younger ones or something?