Question: Quick Feeding Question

My Shadoe is somewhere between 6 and 8 inches long and like all axies a bit of a beggar. He has just gotten switched to a diet of primarily European night crawlers. He of course begs all day every day. About how much/often should he be getting his creepy crawlies?
Thanks!

Depends on water temperature. The warmer the water, the more often they need to eat.

I feed my adults every other day, their water is at around 16.6C.

And how much do they get every other day? I just need to know a guideline for feeding him at this size. Also, is he going to grow much more? I received him in December. At the point I got him his back legs were still just tiny sticks with fingers. Any ideas on if he will get much larger?

Which species are we talking about here? For some reason I assumed A. mexicanum...but upon reviewing, I may have assumed wrong...

Its an Axolotl we ARE on teh axolotl part of the forum.......

RobertsKitty said:

And how much do they get every other day? I just need to know a guideline for feeding him at this size. Also, is he going to grow much more? I received him in December. At the point I got him his back legs were still just tiny sticks with fingers. Any ideas on if he will get much larger?

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A full grown adult, such as yours and mine, get one large nightcrawler each as a staple. He may grow a bit more, but it will be slowly over the years. I had one that reached 9.75" SVL by the time of his death.

All Ambystomidae are gape-limited predators, meaning prey is limited only by mouth size. Most will eat until they are not hungry. Others will try to eat anything that moves, often regurgitating food that did not fit into the digestive tract. Either way, how often and how much they should be fed is dependent on the temperature of the tank.

I use long forceps to feed mine, so it is very easy to control their diet. They do beg constantly though...To the point the continuous "popping" sounds from the surface of their tank can get nerve-wracking. Just like pugs, kids and ants they are very happy to see you if free food is involved. The rest of the time they could care less...

In terms of how much you feed, a good way is to watch their body shape. By tracking that you can tell if your axie is getting overfed or underfed. By now it will eventually form a solid adult version body. If it's a girl, it's normal for the width of their body to exceed the width of their head (width not length and not height) a little since they have eggs in them. But for males, I kept my axie's width of his body to not exceed the width of his head. I hope it makes sense. But the width of the body thing is just my personal preference I've seen some people have axies that are fatter or skinnier, it's all based on how much they are fed too. Since yours is about 6 months old it hasn't fully become an adult yet so it would be healthy if it's head's width is larger than the width of it's body. At some point the size of their heads won't grow as fast as the size of their bodies.