Is my axie scared of live food??

Hi all,

Since year dot my juvinile axie has been fed on frozen blood worm. I really want to vary her diet, so she can be a happy healthy axolotl, and i dont want her to become bored of her food, but she wont eat anything else.

Ive tried giving her frozen brine shrip, and she ignores it. I gave her live dauphnia, but she left them to get sucked into the filter.

Today i gave her live ghost shrimp, but whenever one of them came near her, she freaked out, swam away and tried to hide (i swear ive never seen her move so fast).
I usually hand feed her with forceps, so i caught a couple of the shrimp and tried to hand feed her, but she refused them and swam away. I then (humanely) killed the shrimp and tried to hand feed her again and after watching for a while, (apparently making sure it was really dead), she ate it no problems....
When i hand feed her blood worm she will litterally attempt to swallow the whole cube in one go.... she is soooooooo greedy! But she doesnt seem to want anything else.

Is she afraid of live food? Is she just being a food snob? Is there anything else i could try that might tempt her?
I would quite like to leave live food in the tank for her, so she can eat when she wants, and i eventually want to feed her on guppies etc... but i dont want to stress her out with live food as tank mates if they scare her.

Thanks,

Hi Ashlie,

I don't think your axie is afraid of live food. Perhaps the live food move about too quickly for your axie to catch, perhaps because its a novel food type, the axie is still familiarising. I would say persist with live food and soon the axie will enjoy them.

You might like to try with live earthworms and blackworms first. Freshly killed shrimps will work just fine as well.

Cheers.