Hello everyone, I am new to this forum as well as to keeping mantises. I have wanted one for a very long time and I just ordered a Giant African Mantis from Bugsincyberspace.com and it should arrive in a couple of days. I am almost finished setting up its enclosure and I was wondering, can I use sticks from outside? Do I need to clean them in anyway if so?
Can I use sticks from outside?
- Thread starter KatSoucy
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Hello, Peter is great and your mantis will arrive ready to escape that box. 
Yes, the sticks should be cleaned to remove foreign matter, pests/other species, possible fungus, and other issues. This has been talked about at length previously already, see some of the great recommendations from this thread...
Yes, the sticks should be cleaned to remove foreign matter, pests/other species, possible fungus, and other issues. This has been talked about at length previously already, see some of the great recommendations from this thread...
spider_creations
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I have used sticks that haven't been cleaned before but they were in the hot sun for awhile but like i said it's best to make sure that you aren't going to bring any pest so it's best to bake or boil them
Indeed I did originally too but once I discovered a few had centipedes hiding in the bark of the limbs. I of course did not know it until one of my isopod colonies population started to disappear, and a careful search reveled some fat centipedes and many half ate isopods.
Since then I've also found wood cockroaches (Parcoblatta pennsylvanica), centipedes (Lithobius forficatus), spider nymphs (various), spider egg sacs, and some other interesting things hiding in the branch forks or under the bark.
No problem, have fun creating your mantis habitat setup, and best of luck with your mantis.
Wordy! makes me wonder what I have brought in?
Yeah it's amazing a forum has words put into sentences, and people bother to read and write them!
Yours to the contrary are very tight-lipped and nearly uncommunicative. Not sure why the constant grammar complaints from someone who does not even capitalize the first word in a sentence, but to each their own I guess.
But this is running off topic, so I will implement a easy fix for future issues.
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