Feeding the stick insects

There they are pretending that they are sticks.

They forgot to hide their legs, so now these two look like dead stick insects. Silly girls. They fell off their twig so they pretended to be sticks so we don't eat them. So far we were never tempted...

Once they've realized that nobody eats them but that they will get food, they get really adventurous. There is always at least one who wants to go for a walk outside the cage when it is time to close up. 

They get brambles which they love and prefer to privet leaves and because I'm nice (and don't mind chopping down the brambles rather than the hedge that is the the fence in the front garden) I give them brambles. Which is painful, yesterday for some reason was particularly bad, my hands are now covered in cuts. Gloves that prevent brambles cuts are too clumsy to put a delicate water container into a cage. 

Stick Insects

I finally managed to get sort of decent photos of the stick insects. Their cage is not the most photogenic but they need the holes to climb up.


We had four to start with now we have 11 or 15... it's hard to count the little ones. In the beginning they managed to climb through the little holes and we found them sitting in front of the cage. No doubt wondering how to get back in and have the food. We might have lost some this way but I sure hope they are just hiding.


The little ones hatch looking just like the adult ones. They step out of their skin a few times until they reach their final size which is about 10cm. Then they also get the red batches on the first pair of legs.