vietnamese stick insect

walking sticks as feeders? That's a new one on me. They must not be too difficult to keep huh?
Why would you feed walkingsticks instead of crickets?

For all of my monitor lizards, I try to vary their diets as much as possible. It has been documented that the tree monitors' largest percentage of their natural diet consists of phasmatids and katydids. Therefore, I have added vietnamese sticks to my collection. I have not bred any yet; I am still raisning up juvies, and might I say boy, do they grow fast!!!

crickets have also been known to carry coccidia, which I could sure as hell not use in my collection of high end monitors...better safe than sorry..

whats coccidia?



Thanks,
Ben

coccidia is, I believe a protozoan(single celled organism) that can have harmful effects on your animal. I have seen several bearded dragons in my day that were infested with this illness. Some symptoms are wieght loss and loss of appetite, but what I think is the biggest hint of coccidia is that the animal's feces is very runny and smells bad(much worse than normal crap). This is easily combatted with a medication called Sulfadimethoxine. Many captive herps live with it without showing any negative effects, however once conditions become less than optimal, or the animal's immune system becomes weakened, this illness can take over and lead to the animal's demise. Hope this helps... I really wouldn't worry about it, just make sure you get your crickets from a clean, reputable dealer, and not that disgusting, fly ridden petshop down the road....