Tiger feeding

So I have a young-ish tiger. He prefers red wigglers, which pleases me, because not only are night crawlers more expensive, but it brings me back to a horrible middle school teacher I hated, who made us dissect worms to discover the nothing in them. Anyway.


In fifteen minutes he eats one or two, but that might be due to the STOP SQUIRMING AND LET ME EAT YOU wait time. He eats everyday, and he knows the sound of the food container, so he doesn't really beg until I open it. But I'm afraid he isn't eating enough. (Maybe he's eating too much? I have no idea.)

Video included for worm size. ...Also, he's bigger around than that now. he's noticeably wider than his head, but only by a little.


YouTube - Tiger Salamander Dinner



...Also, its not that great of a video, and I don't know if he's fully coloured, but is he a barred salamander? Or another type? I suspect barred, but, I've never really SEEN another salamander anyway, sooo....

Great vid ^.^ I wish my tiger was that enthusiastic when it comes to earthworms. Mine just pushes them around with his nose, then steps on them. Then he feels it move and is like o.o 'what was that'

I wouldn't know exactly what species he is though. Some species can look alike though he looks similar to mine and I'm fairly sure mine is a blotched because of where I found him.

He loves red wigglers. He doesn't touch anything else. Usually, he just snatches them out of my hand before I can set it down.

I have no idea where mine is from. D:
He was a gift as a little larvae, and now... I have a salamander.



Here's him trying to escape his temporary home as I do his house cleaning. You can see him rather well in this one.

Well its good that he's interested in something that is pretty nutritious and good for them. So you won't have any problems keeping him healthy that way. ^.^ Mine decided that all he wants to eat is superworms which aren't so good. I'm trying to get a hold of some roaches to see if he'll eat them, they are loads better then superworms. I've tried pretty much everything else and he just doesn't show interest.

You might be able to sort of guess what species he is by the state you live in. Tiger Salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum) Species Profile: Housing, Diet, Temperament, and Reproduction This site shows the ranges of each type of tiger, it helped me sort of guess what my guy is. Since I live in Alberta Canada and the blotched is the only tiger who's range includes Alberta, I figured he must be blotched.

Hmm. I think I live closest to the eastern tiger. But alot of pictures I found seemed to be the same ones as when I looked for a barred tiger. D:
Maybe there's alot of variance too. But as long as care is the same for all subtypes, it doesn't matter. (...It is right? Cause... I've been under the impression that it is.)


I first tried feeding mine superworms. He won't touch them. And that pleased me because they scare me. Alot. However, since they're a popular reptile food, and reptiles are so popular, they're much easier to find. I think I'm slowly converting my favourite pet store to earthworms though, so hopefully they'll consider stocking them.


...And that was a really little worm in video. I got him more today, and the majority are alot bigger. (I feed the biggest first with some silly hope the smaller ones will get bigger before he devours them.) They're mostly 2-3 times as thick as that one. ...I filmed that when I was running out of them...

I think the smaller worms made him lazy, and today he caught a huge one by the tail end. he couldn't get it down, and I think it got him with their disgusting taste ooze. ...Or however you describe that thing they do that makes most pets not eat them. He dropped it and had this "I'm going to be a vegetarian now, okay?" sulk, but he managed to get dinner down later.

Yea, subtypes don't really matter all that much, it is basically the same to take care off for all of them. I think the only importance in knowing what subtype you have would be if you wanted to make an attempt at breeding them ^.^ which is what I'd like to try to do eventually, I just need to get my hands on a blotched female and figure out some sort of breeding setup.

And I think there is a lot of variety in each subtypes and some look similar to others, I've looked at tons of pics of different types and my Tiger sometimes looks similar to some individuals of other subtypes other then the blotched.

But yea, the only food items I can get here are crickets and superworms, or I can get nightcrawlers from the bait shop but I heard that those might not be healthy for salamanders, but that's ok because he doesn't seem to know how to eat them anyhow. I do wish we had a larger selection of food so I wouldn't have to be ordering online to test out different foods. I don't like the superworms much either, they are hard to get a hold on with the tweezers and are just generally nasty looking things, I wish my Tiger wasn't so picky lol.

I do hope that that large worm didn't put him off the red wigglers though with its nasty secretions, though if he continues having troubles eating the larger ones because of that, I'm sure you could just feed him more of the smaller, easier to handle ones. ^.^

He was back eating the wigglers 30 minutes later. I tried feeding him superworms once, since they're much easier to find, but he was like NO. He wont get near them.
During recent summers here, we have crickets EVERYWHERE. There are piles of bodies everywhere, they fall from the ceiling when you're out shopping. At home, they will always be found in the shower by the person with the most shrill scream. Every time. And the chirp chirp chirp. I HATE crickets. I don't even remember when the cricket invasion began, but if I had to feed them, I'd explode. D:

I've considered trying to feed them for variety's sake, but I can only find huge ones outside, large ones at the store, and pinhead. And... I think he's more a medium cricket kind of size.


I have no breeding plans, and I don't even plan to get another salamander. ...Maybe an axolotl if I could find one.

Wow. Worms huh? My Rex is very persnickety. I haven't been able to get her to eat anything but crickets. She turns her nose up at everything else I have offered- literally. Or she turns & walks away. That includes worms.

Yes we have had some chirping issues but from where they are in my kitchen they don't sound any louder than the ones outside my bedroom window. Of course the chirpers are the first to get eaten.

I supplement with vitamins. She gets a vitamin dusted cricket twice a week.

I've never had any of the crickets I bought start chirping, they were never adults so I never had to worry about them making noise. The only adult I ever had was an adult female and well she got fed to my Tiger right away lol. And I think its only the males that chirp anyhow.

Oh, ours live inside. Everywhere. So the chirping haunts me. And really? I always hear them chirping in store. Maybe they were grown escapees. I can chase them and play with them, but ask me to keep a box of them living all happy and nope. Not happening.

The people I live with also aren't big on the whole thing, and he lives in my room. (The tank is right by me, and he sleeps next to my face. daww~) So the bugs are right near me too. But regardless, he likes the worms, and he acts like THEY struggle too much.
(He also had some as a larvae. He was eating primarily bloodworms then, and I know he was eating live fish before that- I was given a bag of guppies and it was like ...you might need these, he's kinda picky.) I've given him chopped night crawlers and superworms, and he looks at them and walks away. Once a cricket jumped on his house and he ran into a hole. I don't know what's with him and red wigglers. But since its apparently a nutritious food, I'm glad.
I just don't know how much they eat on average, and if I'm making him eat way too much or not nearly enough.

If its any help at all I used to have a Barred Variety and she didn't really look like that color/pattern wise. When she was a juvenile she was black with yellow polka dots and as she grew they began turning into bars. The one you have looks like an eastern but I could be wrong. Here is a photo of mine if you wanted to compare.



Mine ate a lot of crickets and on occasion I would give her a super worm who had just molted so the hard exoskeleton wouldn't bother her, a nightcrawler or when she was larger a pinky mouse. But again her staple diet was crickets. I could feed her crickets a few times per week or if I gave her something like a pinky she wouldn't eat for a week after.

Hope that helps.

Mine had spots too, and it LOOKED like they were reaching into bars. I assumed he was just still growing into his pattern. However, he seems to have stopped changing, so I guess he's at his full pattern. Which is fine with me, cause they're both adorable~ :3

...Guess who's dog ran in and went straight for the worms.
He promptly peed on them. Now they live outside in the garden.
And now that I sprayed my tiger's cage for the night, he's all HEY, where's dinner? It's worm time.
Guess I'm buying more worms tomorrow...

I think the best way to figure out if your feeding too much or too little would be to just monitor his weight for a while. If he looks like he's getting fat then cut back a bit and if he looks thin then feed him more. You'll find a happy medium I'm sure. I was told that a healthy size is if their sides and head are about the same width. But don't be fooled when they are flat against the ground, that seems to make their sides puff out and make them look fat lol. My tiger looks like a big tub o' lard when he's laying flat on the ground. But when he gets up and starts moving, lifting his stomach off the ground, he doesn't look so fat.

Mine looks just barely fat when he's standing up and pressing his face against the wall. (He likes to watch me use the computer.... I have no idea, no.) He stands on two legs and he has just a bit of fat that sinks down into a pot belly.

Petstore was out of worms!! *anguish*
I bought crickets. He chomped down on one, then spit it out. He tried to BURY the other I gave him. He's eating them now, and I'm gut loading them with fish food and veggies, since I hoping to only feed them to him this week, and I didn't buy any supplements.

I thought they were supposed to like crickets and spit out red wigglers. Clearly, he is backwards. Silly Eduardo. That's okay, I can't stand hamburgers, so I guess it makes sense.


And the crickets only chirp when I want to sleep. It's like they KNOW. And are doing it because I'm feeding them to their death. Also, it echos and makes me think they're everywhere. I'm onto them. >__>