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Axolotls and Beef liver

Phantomlink

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I picked up some beef liver for my Oscar, and learned it can be fed to the axolotls. I looked on the chart. Right now they're on bloodworms, and they're too small still for nightcrawlers. Should I mix up their diet or is the beef liver fine since they're still growing?

Beef liver raw 69.0% protein 13.8% fat
Earthworms 62.2% protein 17.7% fat
Bloodworms 52.8% protein 9.7% fat
 

auntiejude

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It's not just the protein and fat you have to look at, it's also the minerals and vitamins.
Earthworms are (apparently) perfect for axies, but you can mix it up for the with prawns, shrimp, beef liver or heart, chicken, pellets, mealworms, crickets. My axies have turned their noses up at meat (chicken and beef) but love raw prawns.
Be aware the small axies may not respond to non-wriggly food!
 

Phantomlink

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mine are juvies now, I had a problem with how large they were for being 5 months old but I moved them to a larger tank, divided them after one lost a leg and they each get a cube of bloodworms a day and they've really started to grow since then. Not big enough for adult worms from the store, but soon.

We fed a little liver today and they ate it just fine, I need to check back soon to vacuum the tank and see if they did indeed eat them all or not. My guys are fine going after non moving food, I just throw a cube in right now, let it dethaw and drop to the bottom and they find it fairly quickly
 

Azhael

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Vertebrate meat is not ideal, much less so if you are only feeding portions of muscle or other tissues. An axolotl´s diet should ideally be based on invertebrates, with earthworms and fresh-water crustaceans being the best choices. Stuff like liver or chicken may be very practical for you, but they aren´t good foods for your animals and neither are prawns which are salt water species.
There are many threads where this kind of thing has been discussed extensively.
 

oceanblue

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Beef liver is said to be a bit heavy on the vitamin A so use it sparingly and move over to the earthworms if possible. The caudata culture site (link via the dropdown caudata org tab in the Banner) has lots on the pros and cons of various foods.
 
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