Just sharing

I'm pretty new to posting on the forum but have been reading for some time.

Just wanted to share about my axy babies because all my friends are sick of hearing about them and none of them are axy people so they really don't get it.

Babies are coming up on seven weeks old, all wildtypes, 5-6cm and trying to eat other's feet. I have about a hundred left after the big cull. (I cried. I admit it - but there were 300 of them...) This is my first attempt at raising axies, and it's been a bit of a learning curve. I've lost one baby a few days after the cull - everyone else is eating and growing and doing cute axy stuff. Back legs are almost fully grown on some of the bigger larvae.

In other news, nine days ago their dad Daisy was attacked by his tankmate who did serious damage to his right front leg. I was worried about fungal infection, but tank temp was stable at 9 degrees (middle of winter here), and he was eating fine, so I removed his tankmate, blacked out his tank, gave him a couple of salt baths when his foot started to look fuzzy and left him to it. He is now moving the leg normally again, and the skin has sloughed off the foot to show what I think could be his toe bones. He's still eating fine, alert and back to his normal friendly self. The original wound is healing over. We had a couple of stressful days but I'm pretty sure he's well on the mend.

So all in all, I'm feeling pretty buzzed this week. There's never a dull moment with axies in the house.

Crikey, 100 babies! What are you feeding them? What type of axies are the Mum and Dad? Can you see what colour the babies are going to be yet?

Sounds like you've got your hands full.

I guess you thought Daisy was a girl!! Good news about Daisy's leg, sounds like you've got it all under control.

Congratulations on the babies, keep us updated about them. We LOVE to hear about axolotls here!

Babies are now on frozen brine shrimp and frozen bloodworms, with the bigger ones starting to take crushed turtle pellets. They're all wildtypes. They're just starting to look up when someone comes to the tank. They beg better than a dog

Daisy came home from the petshop 7 years ago - a pretty little leucistic with bushy pink gill fronds. My daughter, 4 at the time, took one look and named him Daisy. I figured he couldn't care less what we called him. I've nursed him through two rounds of fungus, a summer where I despaired of ever getting his tank temp down below 20 degrees, and my own complete ineptness and inexperience. After the first fungal thing, he lost his gill fronds and they never really grew back. He's not the most attractive axy in the world, but he's my boy.

It's very much a learning curve when we first get axies, I know it was for me too.

So you've got a leucistic Dad with all wildtype babies? Perhaps their colour will start to change as they get bigger. I know my leucistic babies were speckled when they were tiny until they got a little bigger, I think around the time they got all four legs, but I can't really remember. What type is Mum?

I didn't know babies would eat non-live food, I always thought they fed on movement alone until they had all four legs, well, obviously there are exceptions!

The babies have only just gone on to non-live food. I was feeding baby brine shrimp up till about two weeks ago. I was very glad when they started taking frozen food.

Mum's a wild type, so I'm not expecting them to change very much

I just got my first axolotls this week and my friends and family have been rolling their eyes at the same type of axie-related ranting...well actually for longer than that, but now they have to put up with me shoving pictures in their faces as well.

100 babies sounds like it'd be a lot of work! My two new juvies are giving me a hard enough time. (Well, not really -- my heart just melts every time I walk up to the tank and they look at me expectantly. "You have food for us, right?")