Starving sal

I know i know , not another "my fired belly newt won't eat threads" but i'm at my wits end. I did my research and know they are C. orientalis, i bought them about 4 weeks ago, four in total. The lady at the store sold me the frozen bloodworms she feeds them. They are living in a 20g tank, with live plants both in and out of water, water is 4 inches deep, land mass is approx 1/3 of the area.
2 of them are fat, happy, mostly aquatic, and hunt for their 'yummies' quite agressively. The smallest is mostly land loving, but if i place it in a bowl full of water, will happily eat it's worms once it has it's spaz-attack "oh my! I'm WET!?!?!!???!?!".
Now the one that is actually the 2nd biggest in length is so thin i'm really worried. Land bound also, and when placed in bowl of water with food just floats and swims. I've watched him for 20 minutes and nothing. In 4 weeks this newt has not eaten a single bite. And i watch them everytime i feed till all the food is gone. I can literally see ribs, pointy hip bones, and spinal cord through his skin. He was the same shape (fatness wise) as the other 3 when i got him. Him and the other little land lover slowly move around a few inches every 1/2 hour or so (my ones in the water are much more active). Land guys also seem to like the contact of each other, side by side and doggy-piled all the time.
How can i make him eat?! I don't wanna force-feed him but what else is there? Or has he just decided he doesn't wanna live anymore and is starving himself to death on purpose? I'm so confussed!

Have you tried putting some blood worms on a tissue on land? Or feed some wriggling earth worms (cut into small pieces).

Yes I had a newt like this until I did as was suggested above. He still stays on land and avoids the water but he is healthy. SO yeah try leaving the bloodworms on a land portion and maybe move them around to look like they are alive.

can't do the earthworms as they are 'out of season' up here, but i will try it when i can. I have tried tweezers of bloodworms waved on his nose but he just kept turning his head away. I will put a few globs around by his favorite resting spots i guess.... how long till they go bad? And what do you mean, Ester, by putting them on tissue? Like a kleenex? Thanks for these suggestions... I'll try some right now.

Yep, piece of toilet paper, kleenex.. something which makes it easy to remove the food after half a day or so.

No bait stores around for worms? If all else fails you can try to buy a container of fruit flies, let the flies out (outside) and scoop some of the goo out. Rinse that (use a coffee filer or something like that) and try feed the fruit fly maggots.

The advantage of placing the food in the setup is that the newt can relax and eat when it feels safe.

I personally don't use toilet tissue as it breaks up very easily when wet and the newt could be eating a lot of the fibres on the blood worms. I use damp (uncoloured) bounty kitchen paper as it doesn't break apart like the toilet tissue.
The newt is much more likely to eat if left to it's own devices i think.

I'm nursing a land locked CO back to health and it has not been eating well. However, I recently put some whiteworms in its quarantine container and it instantly ate some. It will take a lot of whiteworms to fatten it up, but it's worth a try.

Check the caudata culture food area for info on how to obtain and raise whiteworms.

I've gotten picky T.grans to eat blackworms after not eating for weeks. He gobbled them right up.

still no luck... but the water lovers came on land for snacks (gosh they're fat). I tried handfeeding 'Noodle' (my 3yr old daughter named the one thats starving) and had a temper-tantrum when it refused after 20 minutes of my hand ackwardly in the tank with mentioned daughter going "mommy, can't see, Mommy, can't see" 20 million times. I gooped bloodworms over Noodles head and around it so thick i swear he was unable to move "you won't eat, eh!? We'll see about that **evil cackle**" then felt so bad i put him in the water "ahh i'm H2O intolerate" so he could swim clean. All the said bloodworms floated to the bottem.... did i mention the 2 water lovers are real pigs? I'm gonna name one (the biggest) Glutton.
will try the papertowel tomorrow. Will let ya know it goes. What about trying to make him aqautic by placing him in a different container with no land? Maybe spruce up his appetite, or stress him further?

Alyssa, putting one in with no land is a great way to drown it. It would stress him out further.

Try live, wiggly food. Put it in with about 3 cm of water, enough that it can lift it's head out, but is mostly submerged, and put wiggly food in the water. Leave him alone (undisturbed!) for a little while, and see if he eats.

For this, I usually use a small plastic food container with a lid. That way food is never more than a few cm from the newt, and it's easy to monitor.

yakshimash ,, he wont drown, jenewt told me something uselful, my newt was a total land luber until i took the land away, now he is happily aquatic like the other, but leave a bit where they can rest in about 1 cm of water, he didnd eat untill i got him back on track with earth worm jim segments, now he even has the courage to snap back at the bigger one, there comes a time when we all have to stand up and be counted...

I had a similar problem some time ago---small slugs seemed to work.

An update. Well the papertowel trick worked good for the littlest Land lover, he is a hungry little newt. But Noodle has yet to eat still. Interestingly enough, my divider (glass siliconed across tank) got a leak sometime during my water change 3 days ago, so after pulling out all my land plants, i filled up the tank with water so even "on land" they are just up to their backs in water. My 2 waterlover fatties are all excited about "new land" to explore and are ripping all over. Little newt isn't so sure but is taking it well. Now Noodle though... i know i said it jokingly but can a newt be H2O intolerant? LOL He's climbing the walls to avoid getting wet. Then he falls down into the water and you can just hear him "ehh, yuck, i'm covered in wet stuff!!" Then stands as straight on his tippytoes with his head cranked up as to avoid anymore unpleasantness. They are so funny! Still hasn't eaten yet, but maybe once the water woos him over, he'll get happier.

maybe the frozen blood worm was not defrosted right or it was old bloodworm gone off if you no what i mean i think that is what it is.

(Message edited by fire_salamander_breeder on January 22, 2007)

Well he seems like a fussy l;ittle bugger, What other foods have you tried other than the bloodworms? I have on occasion given a small bit of frozen meat and my little critter loves it.. Try crickets maybe? I really am not sure bout this one 0_o