Need advice on raising stick insects from eggs

Mendi

Arachnowolf
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 19, 2002
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1,385
I just got some 60-70 eggs from a friend and I know what they like to eat and that once they hatch, but I need some advice on hatching them out. I've no experience with that at all.

Thanks
 

Wikkids_Wench

Arachnoknight
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Feb 23, 2005
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153
I've hatched Extatosoma Tiaratum eggs on damp sand in a small plastic tub before, but IMO the ventilation was too poor to encourage the rest of the eggs to hatch. One even went mouldy.

At the moment I'm trying a 1 cm layer of sand in the bottom of a wood-based mesh cage (fabric mesh in a wood frame with a plastic velcro-ed on front), with the eggs spaced out evenly on the sand, misted morning and evening to maintain moisture.

We'll see... ;)
 

Dark Raptor

Arachnoprince
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Oct 18, 2004
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1,062
With that incubator from my previous post I succesfully raised 7 Phasmodea species:Extatosoma tiaratum, Eurycantha calcarata, Aretaon asperrimus, Medauroidea extradentata, Neohirasea maerens, Phaenopharos khaoyaiensis, Lamponius guerrini.
I've never had any problem with mould... you should only keep correct humidity.
Generally 70 - 90% eggs hatched (sometimes I had more than 300 E. tiaratum's). That was wonderfull wiev.
 

knightjar

Arachnosquire
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Nov 11, 2003
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107
Do you know what species you have?
There are some very different requirements in terms of humidity, temperature and airflow, bearing in mind that phasmids originate from a variety of different climates. Knowing the species would also be useful in knowing what the hatch rate was likely to be. Some species have over 90% success rate, which could turn out to be quite a handful if you suddenly have 70 hungry nymphs...!
 

Dark Raptor

Arachnoprince
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Oct 18, 2004
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knightjar said:
Some species have over 90% success rate, which could turn out to be quite a handful if you suddenly have 70 hungry nymphs...!
Yes... especially Extatosoma tiaratum :)
This pic was taken few years ago (with 'analog' camera). It was one of my first macro pictures... so it looks terrible :8o But you can imagine how many nymphs you can have when using this incubator. My record was more than 300 'tiaratums' and I had to frozen their eggs because I had problems with feeding them.




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Mendi

Arachnowolf
Old Timer
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Jul 19, 2002
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Right now All I have is Indian sticks, Carausius morosus. I know these are apparently very fast hatching/growers as I used the link Dark Raptor provided and more than half had hatched within 24 hours. If they go to crazy on reproduction then I will also have a new source of food for my Ts. I'm ordering some different species like a giant prickly leg from that might take up to 9 months to hatch. If the eggs can be refriderated to prevent hatching without killing them that would also be a good thing as I won't have to have Ts eating sticks all the time though that very possibly could be better than them eating crickets 90% of the time

I also wanted to have some different insect pets that aren't preditory and aren't roaches and I've always been fascinated with these. I have plans on getting 3 other species and likely some leaf insects as well. ...And right now here in TN is a great time to get bramble leaves as all the rasberries and blackberries are ripe, so serves cobbler purposes as well :} :D
 
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