Question: Overweight Axie

Hi All,

I have a seemingly simple question... Can Axolotl's be over weight? I have 3 females who all have very round bellies (see attached pics). I got the yellow one from a pet shop and the black one from a friend and they were both very skinny. The brown one I also got from a friend but she was already very fat and doesn't appear to have changed much in the last 4 months. I feed them a mix of pellets, beef heart, earth worms (when I can get them) and live fish, and they usually get a small amount of something every day (e.g.. 1/2 cube beef heart or a few pellets) as they are always begging for food. I am happy to see that the yellow & black girls have put on weight and are looking happy but I don't want them to get too big so I am trying to feed them every 3 days but they are not happy about that (the yellow one is searching the bottom of her tank for stray pellets as I type).

Do my girls look to fat? If so, are there any tips on helping them lose weight?

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

That is about the size of my axolotl, I read on here that their tummies should be about the size of their head so they don't seem to be fat! Also, I was told to only feed axolotl's twice a week. I usually feed Puckles live feeder fish, and we have blood worms in the freezer once those die out. But I have also gotten good at ignoring him when he gives me the beg face (as hard as it is!)

I'd say they look fine I was having bloat problems with one of mine and someone actually said to me "maybe she's just fat." I was like what does that even mean?! Severe swelling or lumps can be caused by impaction in the stomach (swallowed gravel, etc) and bloat is VERY easy to identified (their limbs and necks swell up, floating) but like, I said yours look dandy and it's great they've put on some weight. As feeding goes, I find its more of a preference. Some say to feed them twice a week, some say up to 4 times. I've just found with everyday feeding 1. Theyre just being greedy and 2. alot of food gets wasted making more work for you!

Thank you both . I'm glad they look healthy. Its so hard to ignore their pleading eyes, especially Fizz, my yellow girl who swims up to the surface and watches me whenever I enter the room. I don't usually have a problem with wasted food as I don't feed them much at a time. I was feeding them a whole cube of beef heart (cut in quarters) to fatten up the skinny ones originally but I found they did just spit it out later on so I dropped it to half a cube cut in half. When I give them pellets I just drop them in and they eat what they want. I am going to try hard to ignore them a bit more. I guess if they start to get skinny again its a sign I'm not feeding them enough.

officerPuckles said:

That is about the size of my axolotl, I read on here that their tummies should be about the size of their head so they don't seem to be fat! Also, I was told to only feed axolotl's twice a week. I usually feed Puckles live feeder fish, and we have blood worms in the freezer once those die out. But I have also gotten good at ignoring him when he gives me the beg face (as hard as it is!)

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Sidhe, Do you breed your own feeder fish or just buy what the pet shop is offering? My local fish shop doesn't always have feeder fish small enough for my axis (usually they have gold fish) so I have thought about breeding my own but I don't know if it would be worth it (plus I think my mum would kill me if I added a 5th tank to my bedroom lol).