Salamandra Health??? Bloating/constipation in salamandra

Hello,

I am a long time Salamandra hobbyist but with everything I’ll be the 1st to admit I can always learn more about them. I’ve been keeping Salamandra off and on now for about 14 years and about 3 years ago got back into them in a big way.

My current collection consist of:
S. s. terrestris ( Solling yellow and Solling red)
S. s. gigliolii
S. s. gallaica (Coimbra, Salvatierra, Serra de Grandola, Serra de Arrabida, Sintra)
S. s. Algira
S. s. Corsica
S. s. Salamandra (stripe form)

I would like to ask if anyone else keeping/breeding salamandra has experienced bloating/constipation in their salamandra. It seems that it can affect all salamandra but strangely I have noticed it in S. s. Corsica the most often. I currently have 1 that has not had a bowl movement in over 3 months now. It is extremely bloated but still eats and appears to be healthy other wise. The diet that I feed in varied and calcium is given as well.
Any thoughts??? Suggestions???

Please reply or contact me directly: Coolsalamandra@aol.com


Thanks
Dave

What substrate are you using with them? What else is in the container? Is there any moss?

Hi

Im going to guess you keep them on paper towels, so in theory they havent ingested anytrhing there, apart from towel, which SHOULD pass through ok, so my interest in in the calcium, and possible build ups in the gut,
How often do you suppliment?


Ben

I keep my salamandra with a rather simple set up. They are housed in plastic shoe boxes 1 per box. I have them on non bleached brown paper towels. A small deli cup is provided with moist moss if they need the extra moisture. I also have a piece of cork bark in with them. Most of my salamandra eat right from tongs and are only fed when they are on the paper towel. the amount of calcium is very little and is only given 1 time a week and sometimes I skip a week.

I feed:

blood worms
nightcrawlers
wax worms
crickets
small meal worms
pill bugs....sometimes
etc.

Thanks for the input
Dave

hi Dave,

That all seems ok to me.
I only give mine calcium once a month in the form of limestone flour-used for horses- and costs virtually nothing, and i try not to give any other suppliments, just a varied diet, on the mealworm side, just make sure they have moulted and are white in colour, the reason for this, as im sure you know, is the hard chitin body of the mealworm is hard to digest, and in the light of your corsica having digestive problems-possibly!!!!- i would leave the mealworms out, thats my opinion,

Feel free to pm me if you want to


Ben