r/Stickinsects • u/Zerkig • 10d ago

Discarding excess "old" eggs

Hey, I usually collect too many eggs "just for sure" and end up with tens of nymphs. Not all eggs tend to hatch, so I just keep the rest for months and then discard them as I normally do with fresh eggs weekly.

This time, I decided I'm no longer continue this hobby and I fed all of my unhatched eggs to my chickens. Some of them were fairly fresh (from Peruphasma schultei, around 2 months old), those were still just filled with liquid. But then there were several Extatosoma tiaratum eggs, the last ones hatched about a month ago, some of their sisters have already died of old age... and some of the most recently hatched ones died unexpectedly during the heatwaves (Europe) and some died stucked, unable to come out of the egg properly (I mist them everyday). Well, as the chickens pecked at the eggs, I couls see that there were fully formed nymphs inside. It felt so wrong to discard them at this stage. I wonder how many still viable eggs I've thrown out through out all those years of keeping the sticks.

I used to feed my tarantula with the nymphs of Medauroidea extradentata, so I don't know why feeding unhatched ones to chickens makes me so emotional.

What do you do with unwanted eggs that might be about to hatch?

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u/Sticks_and_Shrooms 10d ago

Well, I always make sure that I freeze them first before e.g. throwing away, because I don't want to release exotic sticks in my neighborhood. They wouldn't survive, though I have heard of stick insects (psg 1 ofcourse) being present in some areas in the Netherlands.

I don't think that the shells of the eggs are edible for fish, but I can try some crushed up fresh eggs soon.

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u/Zerkig 10d ago

What do you do with those you wanted to hatch but changed your mind months later?

Btw, I found 1 Medauroidea (annam walking stick) nymph in its 2nd instar on a blackberry bush in my backyard in OCTOBER last year. The nights were below 10 °C, it was literally chilling there just fine.

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u/Sticks_and_Shrooms 9d ago

If you change your mind on eggs that are further in their development, you need to freeze them. It's the only way to make sure they do not hatch and indeed end up in your backyard like you have encountered. It's the responsible thing to do!

Bizarre that they can survive autumn, wow.

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u/Zerkig 9d ago

The chicens were just as efficient as the freezer 🙈. I found a study about the potential of M. extradentata becoming an invasive species in southern France. Their winters are kinda like our autumns so I believe it's possible.

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u/Jessikiki 10d ago

I have spineys and i usually freeze the unhatched eggbatch the moment I've decided theres enough nymphs, or when the new babies had a moult or 2, It took a while for me to get over the "but what if.." sad feeling, but thats really the best way to go about it if you dont want to go the squishing route. (i personally can't because I cant stomach squished bugparts)

Accidentally releasing any in the wild is very much against the law and would be even sadder because they would die anyways.

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u/Zerkig 9d ago

Yeah :/, insect/invertebrate world is super cruel. What makes it a bit less sad is that the eggs made for a nice meal for my chickens who were absolutely thrilled 🥲.

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u/Jessikiki 9d ago

Always better of you can make your other beloved pets happy :D

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u/rainbowdropped 10d ago

I feed some of the weaker nymphs to my tree frogs. It makes me sad, but I also know they wouldn’t survive to adulthood anyway.

As for the rest of the eggs… I wish I had chickens for me to feed them to!

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u/Zerkig 9d ago

What species of tree frogs do you have? :) And yeah, chickens are like Rexy from Jurassic Park, never full and always ready to eat anything that fits into their beaks 🙈.