T. verrucosus squabbling at feeding time.

Chinadog

Chinadog

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My aquatic juvenile T. verrucosus often grab each other by mistake at feeding time which is no big deal, but today it esculated to a point where I felt I had to intervene. The two of them were crocodile rolling together to a point where I was sure somebody would lose a leg! The tank is too deep for me to reach the bottom with my hand, so I had to kind of poke them apart with an algae scraper! The three that share a tank are all roughly the same size so are they likely to do each other any real damage, or should I just let them get on with it? I do know I won't be risking putting the smallest one in with them until he catches them up size wise.
 
It sounds like normal behaviour to me.
I enjoy feeding all my animals but these, I try to hand feed all mine to reduce the 'aggression' but by the time I get to the third one, the first is in stalk mode and ready to grab the limb of another. I spread the worms around the tank, but invariably at least one will be in crocodile roll mode. I have not seen any injuries on mine, but I know of one that had a nasty wound inflicted on an arm.
 
Ok, cheers for the reply, I will start hand feeding them. My other species will usually let go once they realise its not food they have hold of, but with these it seems make them more determined to swallow it!
 
I had a group but gave them away because of this behaviour. They nearly chewed each others legs off twice. Each time it looked like the victim was going to lose the leg - you could see the bone and everything. Fortunately they healed well just with quarantine and salt baths but it was still unpleasant. I also saw one trying to swallow a tank mate tail first. The one that was being eaten didn't seem to mind. It was quite disturbing as there was no food around to excite them. It definitely wasn't because they were hungry, they were rather well fed. I felt bad for giving them away (and ungrateful...sorry Julia) but they do seem to have a very different nature to the other species I keep.
 
I hand fed them some worms today and they managed to control themselves. I don't think its aggression, I just think they bite first and ask questions later. They are growing almost unbelievably quickly at the moment and probably need to eat quite a lot to fuel it. The tank is a seventy five gallon corner tank, so there's no need for them to be anywhere near each other if they don't want, yet they always seem to move and rest as a threesome.
Maybe they will mellow with age as their growth slows down? Their parents still have all their legs where they should be and live happily together, so they can't even blame it on a broken home, Lol! :)
 
My adult colony are very aggressive during feeding, they attack each other as soon as they smell chopped worm but are generally passive outside feeding times. They seem to prioritise biting each other over grabbing food, which I put down to their aggressive nature and that they are a bit dim. I haven't had any injuries within the group and my main concern would be that they would tie themselves up in the elodea whilst they are trying to crocodile roll each others legs off, for this reason the bottom part of their tank is weed free as they congregate on the bottom to feed.
 

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Hand feeding went well again today, its not very relaxing though. I suppose in nature they would leave the water and disperse after morphing, where food is harder to come by, so grabbing anything that passes by is a survival tactic? By keeping them as an aquatic group I'm putting them in a situation that isn't really what they were designed for, although they don't seem to mind, they have a large planted island they can use, but they never do.
They are quite dim though, none of my other newts would tolerate snail headgear, even for a second or two. This idiot was stomping round the tank like nothing was amiss for abot ten minutes until it fell off on its own. :)
 

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That's a great picture of your newt with his snail helmet!! Love the description too :)

Glad your hand feeding seems to be doing the trick in terms of keeping them from fighting during mealtimes. Such a rowdy bunch!!
 
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