Urgent question about food!

So my juvie fire belly is a very picky eater, only eating earthworms that have been cut up and hand fed to him. The problem is that I am running low on worms and can't find them in the Wal-Mart anymore! I have a feeling that he is almost ready to take to the water because he has been hanging in and around the water dish lately but he rejects bloodworms anytime they are offered. Does anyone have any ideas of where to get more worms or what else he may take too? Thanks in advance!

Lusiwarrior said:

The Cynops orientalis eat just about anything, that is since it fits in the mouth! However you can always try to get worms here in the forum, there are many that your countrymen have! Good luck!

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ha you say that but one of mine wouldn't touch bloodworms - he does now though.

srfr72 said:

So my juvie fire belly is a very picky eater, only eating earthworms that have been cut up and hand fed to him. The problem is that I am running low on worms and can't find them in the Wal-Mart anymore! I have a feeling that he is almost ready to take to the water because he has been hanging in and around the water dish lately but he rejects bloodworms anytime they are offered. Does anyone have any ideas of where to get more worms or what else he may take too? Thanks in advance!

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I "think" I have a young one - he LOVES brine shrimp, and as with yours he will only eat when he is hand fed - I do leave a pile in once I've fed him but they aren't touched - he will more than happily walk up to the pile, sniff them and sit on them but not eat them. If I then pick them up to feed him he'll eat them.

They are funny our dear C.orientalis! I think each one is different from the other!
Dipsydoodle, the blodworms of it was frozen or alive? If it was frozen it is normal not to eat, because only begin to pick it up when they stage the water!
By the way sopor curiosity, the brine shrimp that give newts are raw or cooked?

The brine shrimp is frozen raw.

If you can´t find earthworms (bare in mind that you can dig them up yourself as long as you know for sure the area is fertilizer/quemical free), you can try with bloodworms, tubifex, blackworms, small slugs, waxworms, silkworms, daphnia, brine shrimp, small crickets/roaches, small feeder fish......
If your animal is newly acquired, it won´t take anything that´s not alive. You´ll have to offer dead foods by tweezers and have a lot of patience. Eventually they do eat from the tweezers.
Also, are you sure it´s a juvenile? If you got it from a pet-shop, it´s very likely it´s an adult.

Lusiwarrior said:

They are funny our dear C.orientalis! I think each one is different from the other!
Dipsydoodle, the blodworms of it was frozen or alive? If it was frozen it is normal not to eat, because only begin to pick it up when they stage the water!
By the way sopor curiosity, the brine shrimp that give newts are raw or cooked?

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As Azhael said the brine shrimp were frozen ones (defrosted before giving). Once the newt started eating brine shrimp he also decided he likes blood worms too; typical but he didn't touch the blood worms first. Ironically for a newt he is very tame (I've only had them a couple of months); he is terrestrial and doesn't like the water so he climbs up for a lift to the land area sometimes.

azhael said:

The brine shrimp is frozen raw.

If you can´t find earthworms (bare in mind that you can dig them up yourself as long as you know for sure the area is fertilizer/quemical free), you can try with bloodworms, tubifex, blackworms, small slugs, waxworms, silkworms, daphnia, brine shrimp, small crickets/roaches, small feeder fish......
If your animal is newly acquired, it won´t take anything that´s not alive. You´ll have to offer dead foods by tweezers and have a lot of patience. Eventually they do eat from the tweezers.
Also, are you sure it´s a juvenile? If you got it from a pet-shop, it´s very likely it´s an adult.

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As Azhael has said I feed mine from tweezers (mine are fishing scissors) but they have rounded ends like tweezers so they won't harm. One of my newts isn't fussed about eating from tweezers; he will have a few bits and then he'll run away - so I leave the food in a bowl for him. The other newt (the terrestrial one) is more than happy to eat from the tweezers and looks all excited when he sees them.

Lusiwarrior said:

They are funny our dear C.orientalis! I think each one is different from the other!

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Oh I definately agree, I have two and they couldn't be more different if they tried. Although I like the fact they are different. :rofl:

I feed my juveniles flightless fruit flies, pinhead crickets, and springtails. There are many sites that sell these things. I also bought Dawn's (Otterwoman) white worms a long time ago and they're still thriving. I do not handfeed mine as I have almost 60 of these, having only lost one.

As Azhael said, be sure it's a juvenile as my WC adults from the pet store avoided the water for months and wouldn't eat for many weeks after getting them. I knew very little about them back then...

Good luck,
Dana

Thanks for all the responses! Yea with winter coming this way fast it's difficult to find worms. I figured I'd give pinhead crickets a try so I got a few from the pet store and at first my newt was like huh? The first one needed to be hand fed like the worms, but i put in about 3 crickets on their own and when one went near the newt he snatched it up. Now he's actively hunting them down which is something I've never seen him do! It's like watching a whole new critter.