Bracknell schoolgirl looks after 50 stick insects during lockdown

Evie from Bracknell took on a massive project of looking after the critters to distract herself from the coronavirus lockdown.

The animal-loving nine-year-old was given three stick insects for her eighth birthday by her grandparents.

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She said: "My grandparents gave me 3 stick insects for my 8th birthday and I loved them, as daddy used to have them when he was little too! The ladies were called Flower and Brambles and the male is called Branch.

"My daddy tried to hatch some from eggs bought off the internet before, but nothing ever happened with those.

"Sadly during the first week of lockdown the lady stick insects both died suddenly and I was so so so upset we held a funeral for them in my garden where I wrote some words about the circle of life, but I was so sad and worried that Branch would get lonely."

However, in the end Evie ended up looking after 50 giant thorny stick insects.

"Two days after the females died, they spotted a baby stick insect and within days they had at least 10 baby stick insects."

Her mum Justine said: "We were so happy to distract our daughter from losing the two females and to have any distraction from the growing panic around the Corona Virus Pandemic.

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"It was a lot of fun coming down each morning and seeing how many new ones had arrived!"

Little did they realise how many eggs there were still to come nor how fast they would hatch and before long they were losing count.

Justine added: "I actually came down with suspected COVID-19 symptoms in March and my husband was extremely busy working so we kind of took our eye off the ball and before long we had about 30 of them, but it was getting so hard to count! Then all of a sudden we seemed to have 50, even with giving away 8 to friends!

"We've now separated the males and the females into two enclosures as do not wish to have even more. I don't even really like bugs, so have no idea how I've got myself into this situation, I often have nightmares about them crawling over my face."

Whilst looking after the stick insects, Evie has written a blog all about them and how to look after stick insects.

There is also useful advice on how to look after them and interesting facts including how they shed their skin called moulting.

Evie added: "I LOVE my stickies, they’re so cute, the males are my favourites as they literally look like sticks, the females are interesting too, but they do look a bit more scary.

"They are so sweet and slow and are not poisonous and don’t bite you they just like swaying in the air and eating leaves and pretending to be sticks!”

The family are still trying to rehome the now adult stick insects.