#Anyway this is just my reading and I'm Absolutely Definitely projecting to some degree - please read Helix and love Max of your own volition

[wellamarke]

Hey Joni :) Long time no speak, but wanted to see if you had any advice. I'm thinking about owning a stick insect, do you have any suggestions? such as, should I get more than one or are they happy being on their own? Do you use a heat mat under their tank to keep it warm? (also as Im planning to total own giant snails and giant leaf insects if I can in the near future but thats a step up! - are giant snails quite easy to look after?) x

[2/2]Hey Joni, You know that ask about stick insects and giant african snails I sent you a little while ago, can I add in a question? Ive read that snails carry salmonella bacteria like reptiles, does this make it difficult to keep them? I’m a bit of a germaphobe so salmonella makes me a little nervous but I’m absolutely in love with giant snails! Thank you!

Hellooooo! Sorry it’s taken so long for this to materialise. This is my third attempt at writing this, since my phone decided to eat it twice. Apparently I’m cursed. But now I’m here in a different app, praying that I’m not about to write an essay for nothing….

I thought I would post the reply publically so that anyone else who finds themselves interested in stick insects or snails can read it too. It might end up serving as a little FAQ section if my bug-keeping ways ever become known enough to be asked about frequently, heh heh heh.

So, here goes. Take three.

Stick Insect Suggestions

Plurality In terms of what they actually prefer - I’m not sure they mind much. I’ve kept them in pairs, triples, groups and - in the case of the recently departed Douglas - singles, and they seem to go about their Insecty business much the same, unencumbered by feelings of loneliness or rivalry. So I suppose it’s up to your preference how many you keep! Here are a couple of factors to consider, though:Babies sometimes die inexplicably. Well, perhaps to a doctor of stick insect ailments it wouldn’t be inexplicable… but through no fault of the owner, some nymphs don’t shed their skins properly, or fall from their tank roofs and damage themselves, and there’s not much you can do about it. So it seems best to start off with a handful of insects to ensure that you get at least one or two who survive into adulthood. (I still don’t know what happened to Carolyn, one of my original five. She developed a strange dent in her back that made her look as though she’d been snapped in half, but other than that seemed fine until it was time to shed her skin, which she couldn’t do. Babies are fragile, I guess. Once full grown they’re much less prone to random dying.) Ease of cleaning out. Once Douglas was alone it was soooo much easier to change over his leaves, because there was only one of him to keep an eye on why I did so. Cleaning out a tank while six of them are crawling all over the place requires a lot more presence of mind, obviously! Usually with just Doug I waited until he was in a convenient position where I didn’t have to disturb him too much, like on the roof or in one of the corners. If he was on the roof it was perfect because I could dump all the old leaves and swill out the whole tank. If he was in a corner I could at least wipe it. I tried not to bother him too much in his old age, otherwise I suppose I could have just moved him where I wanted him. This, too, would have been easier to do with just him to worry about.So you see there are advantages to having a group and having a single. Although you could get around the group difficulties by having a secondary container to deposit them in while you cleaned out their proper tank, I suppose.

Heat MatsHere is a secret about stick insects: they are easy to look after. Apparently on the internet, this is a secret. On the internet people like to overromanticise their Foreign Exoticness™, and would have you installing a heat mat, a miniature gymnasium, a salad bar and a skating rink for the comfort of your Foreign Exotic™ pets. But truthfully they are not fussy creatures, in my experience. Unless you live in the Arctic, your home is probably not too cold for them. I have never had heat mats for my sticks. I would say you need to guard against them getting too hot, rather than too cold - and I live in England!When I was about twelve, I had my very first stick insects, Stan and Laurel, for a rather brief amount of time that was cruelly cut short by them dying of heatstroke. They were left in direct sunlight for a couple of hours, and cooked. Meanwhile, the insects I’ve had since then have survived English winters with no ill effects - and no heat mats. Of course, mine are Indian Stick Insects, the most basic kind money can buy. I claim absolutely no expertise on any other kind of stick (or leaf, or indeed otherwise shaped) insect - possibly, some of the ones that truly have a degree of Foreign Exoticness™ will be glad of a good heat mat. Don’t quote me unless you’re buying Indians. Probably don’t quote me at all, lest the Righteous Exotickers descend on me…! But I would honestly say Indian stick insects are fine in most climates without a heat mat.

Other things:

I very rarely handle my stick insects - the few times I’ve touched them have mostly been accidental! Maybe it’s me projecting my touch-phobe ways onto them, but Douglas lived four months longer than the average so I can only guess that he was pleased to go undisturbed for most of his life. My defence here is that if I wanted a touchy-feely pet, I would have got one with fur. (Also, I read somewhere once that sometimes being picked up can scare them, and they’ll just drop a leg and run away, hopefully regenerating the limb later but if not, their attitude is “oh well, at least I got away from the scary human with my other five”. I have no idea if this is true, but I don’t touch them with my hands if I can help it. If I do need to move them I try and tempt them onto a leaf first. Though if a stick has decided it wants to be somewhere, you often have a job convincing it to move.)

I have recently taken to setting some stems with leaves on in little containers of water, which makes them last much longer. But the insects could drown in more than a few drops of water, so the containers are covered, with just a few holes in their lids to let the stalks through. I don’t know if that’s a good enough description, maybe I’ll add a photo here later of this setup.

They love to drink tiny water droplets, so a spray bottle is a good thing to keep on hand. You can get away with only changing the leaves every four or five days if the spray’s there to break it up.

They have cute little faces. Once they’re adult it’s big enough to see. Make sure you cherish their faces and tell them often that they are beautiful.

Don’t worry if the top part of their front legs start going red. I thought Doug and his siblings had developed some kind of disease when I first noticed this! But actually red “armpits” (as I began calling them) are a sign of healthy adulthood. If anything it just means you can stop worrying that they’ll die during skin-shedding, because they won’t need to shed anymore. (Again, I can only speak for Indians… perhaps in other stick species red legs is a sign that the End Times are upon us!)

I have recently taken to covering the floor of the tanks with tissue paper. I never bothered before this generation of babies hatched, but when they did I read that tissue is a good idea, because if they fall on it they’ll be protected. Now I just kind of do it anyway, even though they’re all about the same age as Douglas and Co were when I got them. Not only does it protect them a little from falling, it makes clearing out the droppings ten times easier, especially if they insist on staying put when you’re trying to do so. As mentioned, they are stubborn beasties. I wonder sometimes if they were called stick insects because their feet stick to things, and then we named wooden sticks after them because of the resemblance, rather than the other way round…

Giant Snails!

Are they easy to look after?Yes, I think so! They eat most kinds of fruit and vegetables - exhaustive lists can be found on Snail Forums, but mine are especially fond of lettuce and broccoli. They’re not that bothered about strawberries or cabbage, I’ve found. I don’t know if this is typical or just Snailsa and Shelemiah being awkward. It’s fun to watch them eating, and I just take out uneaten food once it looks a bit old, before it goes mouldy on them. I also don’t give them the outer leaves of lettuce etc, because it might have pesticides on. The other thing they like - for some reason - is flakes meant for exotic fish. No idea why, and I probably wouldn’t have thought to give it to them, but the people we adopted them from sent them with a tub of fish food, and sure enough, they can’t get enough of the stuff. If they’re sulking about something and won’t eat, I sprinkle a bit of fish food and suddenly everything is forgiven. Strange but true.They also need a sprinkle of calcium every now and then on their food, to help keep their shells strong. Everywhere you look people recommend cuttlefish bone too, and I have given mine some, but I’ve never seen them actually use it so for good measure I still sprinkle a little calcium. They like to be kept damp, so every day I spray them with water. Sometimes if they get too hot they seal themselves into their shells, and then they need a good dousing from the spray bottle to coax them out. The first time it happened I thought they were dead… but they’ve revived each time, and I just try not to let them get too dry for too long. I also have to check for eggs every few days, and they should be removed and frozen. (I’m not sure how easy/legal it is to breed your own baby snails. Everywhere I’ve read, it just says not to. You definitely can’t release them into the wild, because they’re not part of the ecosystem here.) I actually haven’t ever found an egg… so I’m not sure how often they’re supposed to appear?!I think snails do prefer to live in pairs or more, for what it’s worth. They are, to quote something I read online, “gregarious”. Love that word. Never seen it used in regard to stick insects, but… The snails have the kind of peat/soil stuff sold for large spider care, in the bottom of their tank to bury themselves in or dig around. I change that when it gets old but I’m not sure how often it should by rights be changed. Usually ends up being every other month or so.

SalmonellaYes, they do carry salmonella, which is a little unfortunate. I have a supply of plastic gloves that I keep with their tank, and I use them the whole time I’m handling them or their stuff. Then afterwards I still wash my hands with soap, because….. you never know! I’m not usually a germaphobe at all but I’m being unprecedentedly careful over the snails, heh heh. Maybe I’ll get lazier once I’ve had them a bit longer (as I’ve heard of other people touching them with their bare hands etc), but at the moment I’m taking the double precaution. It’s not much of a bother really, in comparison to how cute they are to look at :D

Well, I think that’s it, and woohooo, my phone has left it alone so far! Now let’s see if it will post. Doubtless I’ll come back and add more things as I remember them, but for now… this has been a Sticks & Snails PSA! Thank you for your attention.

#shut up about stick insects joni #shut up about snails joni #shut up joni #snelstick FAQ