Raising (& Breeding) Ommatotriton

[jane1187]

You're very talented with your camera Mark, as well as a camcorder! Those shots are excellent. No chance of you producing prints to sell? Its not a newt you see every day is it, very handsome.

[Mark]

Well, the initial reason for this thread was to discuss the difficulties of raising this species and I've somehow avoided those problems. I'm 100% certain it's not due to my talents as a newt keeper so that might suggest there are different strains with different tolerances (could explain the different sizes). Obviously this experience only involved 4 individuals but now I have 100+ to gauge them by which should give a much clearer picture of their success in captivity.

[Mark]

Quick update. About 30 have morphed so far and are doing well as tiny terrestrial newts. They secrete themselves in small crevices amongst the bark piles and are only seen foraging at night, especially when it's wet. They are quite gregarious, favouring some spots in large numbers. A few are probably as large as the newts I received from Billy originally.

Photography is nearly impossible as they race for cover at the slightest disturbance. Anyway here's couple of shots from above.





About 70-80 remain as larvae. I fished out a further 20 well developed larvae from the adult tub who were being transferred to a terrestrial set-up tonight.

[mr cyclone]

Mark I do hope you master what normally seems to go wrong for the rest of us,be it temperature,humidity,ricketts or whatever..I'm looking forward to reading your results.And also purchaseing some of your adults that you will undoubtably succeed with.
Best of luck

[Mark]

I'm still amazed at how many viable eggs one female newt can produce in a season. I scooped another 20 larvae out of the adult's old aquatic tub in the garden today and I'm sure there's plenty more in there. They've been added to the horde already in the raising tank which is producing morphs at an alarming rate. This is the problem with keeping newts in semi-wild conditions, you have no control over numbers. If you leave things to their own devices you'll end up with hundreds of newts on your hands...As mass newt raising experiments go this could be up there with Jen's Cynops trial.

One thing I've noticed is that the morphs are very susceptible to drowning. Once they've left the water, even with gill stubs in evidence, they cannot be allowed to return or they will drown. I've had to develop a system whereby every day morphs are unceremoniously deposited into terrestrial quarters. If you leave them for longer than a day they start exploring and inevitably drown.

Another bloody batch of larvae!

[Caleb Leeke]

Are these any bigger than the earlier ones? They look more than 1.5cm...

[Mark]

The largest larvae in that photo are about 2.5cm and may morph at that size or slightly larger. Now that I've seen plenty of morphs I'd say 2.5cm is pretty average, within a range of 1.5cm to 3cm. Certainly the later morphs are turning out consistently larger, which would make sense as they've had more time to grow. Very few have been close to 3cm.

[Morg]

Shortly after my post on this thread back in May I constructed an outdoor raising tub simular to the one Mark used, and it was put outside in a suitable area.
I did add bloodworm, and small crickets occassionaly, but whenever I checked it contained lots of wild insects which the newtlets will have been eating.
I have just carefully checked the tub to make sure I didnt miss any newts, and have brought 4 chubby lively newtlets back inside to a semi aquatic tank.
It looks like the other two havent survived, but this is still the best I have ever done raising banded newt juveniles

[Mark]

Great news Morg. How large are they and can you tell if you have a mixed group yet? What made you bring them indoors?

I haven't had any noticeable losses with my metamorphs who are still outdoors. I'm going to start splitting the larger ones out into a separate tub to reduce food competition for the smaller newts. There's at least a hundred plus in there so I've resorted to buying crickets and culturing fruit flies on an industrial scale. I still have larvae too... Next year I'm sending eggs out rather than raising this many! The adults are back in full terrestrial mode and have piled on weight. Males in particular during the aquatic breeding phase lose interest in food and become quite thin. Mine do well on a staple of woodlice which they consume in great numbers.

[Mark]

I performed an Ommatotriton audit last weekend and the grand total of juveniles stands at just over 100 with a further 20 larvae still to morph. The largest juveniles are close to 6cm. Each week the group chew through around 250 2nd instar crickets, a few hundred fruit flies and a handful of baby woodlice.

One showing off his cricket hat.



Nice markings already!



Terrestrial adult males.

[Mark]

As it's gotten slightly warmer I decided to sort out the adults aquatic set-up in the garden. Their old tub was still in place but was looking very sorry for itself, full of dead plants and sludge. Whilst emptying it I found to my surprise there were still a couple of larvae in it from the previous year! Considering we've had the coldest UK winter for 100 years and this tub has permanently had ice on the surface for many weeks it's amazing these fellas survived. Just goes to show how hardy newts can be. Eggs were being laid throughout the summer and perhaps these were late stragglers that didn't morph in time and decided to overwinter rather than risk crawling into the cold.



Looking a little raggedy around the edges but soldiering on.

[Morg]

my new outdoor set up for banded sub adults, completely dry one end to wet the other. Dry end has a piece of perspex between enclosure and lid to stop rain getting in.
Enclosure is a converted water tub 6 foot in length
I am having them in this enclosure for summer and autumn as it is, then Im planning to insulate it for the winter in the hope they come into breeding condition early next year, when I will transfer to indoor aquatic set up

[Martin]

Good luck with them mate, i am doing something similar but smaller.

[Morg]

This set up has 3 hides in the damp area[buried or partly buried,but with easy access and 3 in the dry, again partly buried or buried.
Food items Ive added myself are live bloodworm on a piece of damp bounty kitchen paper, and waworms, both can be seen in middle section of pic.

There should also be lots of little insects brought in with the leaf litter and damp leaves etc.

I went out last night with a torch and all the newts were out and about, in and out of the water bowl, and two were observed feeding, i on bloodworm, the other wrestling down a waxworm.

[Squirt88]

Those are beautiful specimens, I am so jealous! :)
I'm sure they will do really well.

[Chris Michaels]

The enclosure looks great, Morg. Lets hope they come into breeding condition in the spring. What is the composition of the substrate?

C

[Morg]

The tub has holes in the bottom for drainage, this is topped with a layer of leca.
On top of this is a deep substrate of composted bark soil improver, which I have used for years with all my terrestrial newts[cant find a local shop-gardening centre selling in now though]
On top of this is dead oak leaves one end, dead decaying wood, and live moss the other end which also has a water bowl

[Legend of the Dragon]

Amazing�