keeping a stick insect

 Stick insects

Equipment You Need

 

Mesh enclosure

Spray bottle

Water to fill up spray bottle

Eucalyptus leaves, pellets or fruits

Buying

Buying a stick insect is quite easy. The cheapest place is terrific scientific for 12$ a stick insect. I recommend buying girl stick insects,see why  in the breeding section.

Daily Care

 ,m 

Stick insects eat eucalyptus leaves, pellets and some fruits. They need fresh eucalyptus leaves every week. Make sure you put the base of the leaves in a jar of water to keep them fresh. 

Once a day you need to spray the leaves with a mist of water. This is the water that stick insects drink while they are eating the leaves. 

You need to clean the cage every week. You don’t necessarily need to take the stick insects out, you put your hand on the leaf or part of the enclosure in front of the insect. Push your hand very lightly and it will climb on to your hand. If it climbs up your wrist and arm you can put your other hand in front of it and it will swap on to the other hand. You should only hold it for 15-30 minutes per day. 

Breeding

Girl stick insects can have babies without a boy but they will all be girls. if they have babies with a boy then the babies could be boys or girls. Girl stick insects are better to have because they don't have wings but boys do. Boys could fly out of their cage when you are cleaning it. 

If you have too many eggs and you don’t want some you need to freeze them overnight and then throw them out into your garden. If you don’t freeze them the eggs will grow and stick insects will appear in your garden. It would be hard for them to survive unless you have eucalyptus trees. 

If you have eucalyptus trees in your garden you don’t need to freeze the eggs, you can just put them in the garden. 

Why are stick insects good pets?

Stick insects are good pets because they are easy to keep in houses or apartments unlike dogs and cats you can also hold them everyday unlike fishes or snakes and you only need to supply them with more eucalyptus every week as there food