Stick Insects as Feeders

[Coleonyx]

I have a colony of 200-300 Indian stick insects and I was wondering if they can be used as feeders. They are small enough to be fed to hatchling coleonyx (1/4 of an inch long at hatching) and large enough to make a good meal for a leachie (6 inches long at adulthood). Does anyone know the nutritional information for these guys? They seem pretty clean and only eat oak and bramble leaves. They are parthenogenic and lay eggs (which take up to 4 months to hatch) every day. Also, they are very slow and not noisy. They can climb glass though.

 

[Hilde]

I used them for my chams, the leachianus while she was still small (leopard gecko size) and some Uroplatus would eat them.
The best reaction though was from the chams, they'd actually RUN to get at the sticks. I figure if something makes a cham run, it must be good.

 

[WildEyeReptiles]

There is some concern that the tannins (from eating oak leaves) could cause an issue, but you'd have to feed a lot of them for this to be an issue.

 

[Hilde]

I never used oak leaves for the Indian sticks that I used as feeders, just bramble, rose, mountain ash, romaine lettuce and other 'safe' plants. They were raised on these leaves from the time they hatched. My 'breeders' did get a wide variety of leaves, even oak and ivy but only during the summer, in winter they happily lived on whatever I could get my hands on such as romaine lettuce, ficus benjamina etc.

 

[zBrinks]

Anyone selling these guys? Id love to breed them as treats for my larger herps.

 

[henrykrull]

I also have 100 or so stick insects but havent tried them as feeders, would tokay geckos go for them?

 

[Marty]

oh, no...I'm a phsasmid fan ... hope the people from insectnet don't come here

 

[cliff_f]

I have never thought about using those as feeders, they would interesting to try. I bet my Veiled cham would like them.

 

[HepCatMoe]

i had a flying gecko that would eat them.

 

[jof]

I used to feed them to my animals, but I always used bramble as a safe plant to be sure that the stick insects itself where not poisonous.

 

[rodekuhr]

I have quite a few extra indian stick insect eggs if anybody is interested let me know. I also raise stick insects but I have not tried feeding them to my geckos yet. They seem like they would be a good feeder though if the geckos can find them.

 

[the_e_train]

No No No

I love stick bugs and I would probably not use them as feeders but thats only because I keep some rare species. I knew a guy out in san diego who used to feed his baby jacksons the small indian sticks with no problems.

 

[Acro]

I used to keep about 8 different species of stick insects. I would feed off extras to my leopard geckos and they LOVED them!!!!! My stick insects all fed on mulberry leaves and rose leaves.