My 1st Fire Salamander

Nice.
I have a passion for this species, to me they just exude caudatiness.
At that size it may very well be full grown (well, not really, but you get my meaning). It does look like terrestris, i agree. Other than the markings, the head and tail shape correlate to terrestris.

Good luck, these guys are fantastic!!

Very nice sal mate, nice markings, very nice set up, i think he or she will be very happy in that set up. :happy:

Mally is gorgeous. I don't think it will be too long till he has to share his new home.

Thanks very much for the nice comments peeps.

He's gone into hiding now and this leads into a question. You see, Val, my better half has returned from a shopping trip with some small "bite sized" locust. After a bit of a pantomime I've managed to get 3 into the tank, keeping the rest in their tub. But, with Mally hiding and the 3 locust goodness knows where now, how do I keep track of his feeding? I do plan on giving him a staple of earthworms but his previous owner fed him on dusted crickets and locust only so we thought something familiar to him would be best. He really didn't seem to know what to do when i presented him with an earthworm earlier - and that has now gone to ground. Will he come out of hiding when he's hungry?

@bellabelloo. Julia, I have a birthday coming up and wouldn't be surprised if I don't have a small group before too long. Can you recall how quickly my axie family grew? lol.

If you mist the tank lightly when the lights turn off, if the animal is hungry it will come out to look for food. They can become very "tame" and beg for food, too. As long as it has a good body shape i wouldnt worry too much about it not feeding very frequently, they are tough.

Very nice animal to get you into the world of salamandra keeping,
and yes its a terrestris,
if you want a mate for it, i have a spare one here!!!

Your setup is beautiful, and so is Mally.

Once again, thank you for the sound advice and lovely comments.

Can it really be only a week since I got Mally? He's settled in so quickly and seems very happy even if he is a little lost at times all alone in his tank. Anyway, when Mally was brought here, a pleasant young feller accompanied Mally's owner and he mentioned that he was looking after Mally's ex tank mate, a very gravid female. So, when a couple of days later I discovered that this female was for sale I was very interested.

In the past year I've rehomed around 100 baby axolotls and I'm now down to my last dozen, so I have time on my hands and the challenge of rearing baby salamanders is something that appeals to me.

I might have paid a little more than I should, but I'm a romantic at heart and I feel as if I'm reuniting a family. :blush:

I have the female in a 2ft x 1ft tank at the moment - I thought she would be better off alone until after she's finished giving birth. The tank has two 10" x 4" water troughs lined with heavy duty plastic bags containing about 30mm of dechlorinated water. I have a bit of a log and some slate over hanging the troughs creating sheltered but easily accessible areas.

So, without further ado...

No sign of little ones yet, but this evening she went into one of her water troughs and backed under the over-hanging slate and then pulled a couple of oak leaves in front of her. I'm so wanting to have a look at what's going on but I'll not be checking her till about 10am... if I can get any sleep that is.

How exciting. I have visions of you raising a small army of fire salamanders