Newby needs Tiger Salamander help

Not only am I new to this forum, but I'm new to salamander care. The nature center I am naturalist at was given a Tiger last July. We were given the home he'd been living in for over a year--no history on him prior to that. The former owner fed him worms. I just did what she said she did. There are some rocks, wood chips, plastic vegetation and a flower pot with the bottom removed as well as a shallow water bowl that she told me to put this stuff in--don't know the name and don't have the package in front of me--but it's as hard as a brick and I have to pry some off the brick and then when it goes in water it gets like mud which he loves to burrow in. Every thing had been going fine. He was active, ate good. I fed him a night crawler every 3 days or so. All I did was dangle it near him, get his attention and then he'd lunge for it. Once he had the end in his mouth, he would shake his head like a dog with a sock in his mouth only slower. then he would bit by bit take the worm down. All was well. Until last weekend. As with every Friday, I moistened his water bowl and fed him. With President's day it was a 3 day weekend and when I got back on Tuesday, his bowl of mud had dried considerably. He was in the corner of the tank on a rock looking pretty pathetic. Once before he had gotten out of his tank and we found him in the basement of the building all dry, skinny, and covered in sheet rock dust from the construction going on in the basement. That time I washed him really good, put him in a plastic tub with a 1/4" of water and gave him a worm. Within a few hours, you wouldn't know anything happened. So I tried that again. I washed him off, put him in the plastic tub with water and tried to feed him. He wouldn't eat. He was barely moving. I let him alone for a while and he started looking much healthier--moistened up like a sponge that had been dry--grew to twice the size he was when he was dry. So I tried feeding him again. No dice. The same thing the next day and the next day and the next. Today he was more active, but still wouldn't eat. I found out on another list serve that he should be eating more than worms so I took a cricket from the tarantula and put it in his tank. That was about 12 hours ago and I haven't been back to check on him so I don't know if he ate it or not. You have our life story now--any advice? I have just been adding water to his bowl from a bottle that I fill from the faucet and let get to room temperature. We have well water but it is softened. Is this hurting him? Some of you have said crickets aren't so good unless they are gut loaded. What does that mean and how do I do it? For the tarantula I just go buy a dozen large crickets, put them in his cage with a few lettuce leaves and when he has them all eaten in about 2 weeks, then I wait a few days and then get him some more. Am I doing that wrong too? Boy, I sound pathetic. But pathetic or not, I need advice. I've read every word on this section and learned a lot, but I need more. Thanks in advance!}

hi think before you take an,animal on you should read all that you can and get advice from some one who knows gut loaded,crickets are ones that are fed food that you,can buy it contains minerals and vitamins which when fed to your salamander will be good for him.not eating well poor thing is most probably stressed,hope he gets good luck tony.

Definitely use dechlorinated water, not distilled or treated water----spring water in a plastic jug you can get at the grocery store is excellent.

There is a care sheet on this forum for tigers, and do a search at Yahoo under "pet tarantula forum" and you will get some good websites.

Good luck and don't give up!

If you want to feed the tiger crickets now and again that would be good, but a diet consisting of mostly or entirely earthworms is not a problem at all for them. To gutload crickets you simply have to feed them a high quality food for 24-48 hours prior to feeding to your pets. You can buy commercially available gutloads, or make your own. If you want detailed help with gutloads feel free to contact me, but if you are keeping crickets for two weeks at a time I recommend not buying the commercially available gutloads, as most have way too much calcium in them and will end up killing off the crickets within a few days.

In addition healthy animals can go weeks without eating, and if you are feeding him a whole nightcrawler every three days I can guess it must have quite the healthy roundness to it. Keep trying to feed it, and if it still hasn't by the end of this week I would begin to worry.

If you'd really like to change his setup I would recommend doing a trick I saw at one national park nature centre that I visited. They took a 20G tank and placed topsoil into it until about half full. They then purchased a piece of plastic piping and cut it in two length wise (providing a U shaped piece) and slanted it down through the soil making it a sort of artificial burrow. They made sure the end of the pipe was right up against the glass and placed a taped piece of cardboard over it to help hide the light. People browsing could lift the cardboard and see the tiger, or if he was out roaming they could see it as well. They had some nice plants planted on the top as well as a water dish. Many people on here have used similar setups, but I think a setup like that as well as information about how tiger salamanders belong to the mole salamander family and spend most of their lives burrowed under ground on a paper or something placed on or near the tank would really give people a better idea of how they are in the wild. Also, with that depth of soil if you keep the soil moist it would be less likely to dry out over a weekend, to help avoid problems such as this next time. Make sure if you use a water dish that it is very shallow, as adult tiger salamanders can drown if you're not careful.

There is also a detailed caresheet at http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Ambystoma/A_tigrinum.shtml that should help you with ideas, detailed information as well as help you write up an info sheet to post next to them if you wish to go that route.

Hopefully this has been helpful.

Thanks everyone for your help. I want to address each of you--Tony, you are right that I should have learned more before I took on the salamander but that really wasn't an option. Either we took him or she was going to let him go. I didn't want a captive to just be let go. So I took him. I figured since she had had him for a year, I would just do what she did. I also took in a tarantula, 2 ferrets and a rabbit because they needed taking care of. Not that I want to be Florence Nightengale, but they needed some one so I was some one!

Leanne, I will get some good water right away Monday and clean out his bowl and start over. I'm sure that will help. Thanks for the other info. I'll be looking at that right away!

Rob,
It is easy to see that you really care about animals. You shared very vital information that will help me take better care of my salamander. You described everything in detail. I can picture it in my head, and that takes some talent! Thank you for your compassion.

And now for the good news everyone! I checked on him this morning and he ate the cricket I gave him yesterday and I was able to feed him another one! They aren't gut loaded, but he ate! I also moved him back into my office where he will get light and dark instead of mostly dark.

Again, thank you everyone! This is a great site and I will continue to learn from you all!

Cool, 2 ferrets and a rabbit too! Ferrets are a lot of fun, so are rabbits (I had a ferret, "Harley", whom I bought from a motorcycle guy, hence the name), and a lop-eared dwarf rabbit, "Michael". And don't get me started on Joey and Erlin, the rats I had! Have fun with your menagerie!

To add to the gut-loading question, I use something along with the gutload food called "Cricket Dust", a vitamin supplement that you cover the cricket in before you feed him to your salamander. I have a little container---I pick a cricket out, put him in the container with some vitamin dust, put the lid on and shake. Then the cricket is covered with the stuff and Fatboy doesn't seem to care that the cricket has dust all over him. I have a hard time getting my sally to eat worms, so I resort to this kind of feeding often.

Hi Dana,

No problem at all on the help. That's what we're here for. If you get a chance snap some photos for us! If you need any explanation about any of my advice feel free to contact me directly via email.

Guess I'll be making a trip to the pet store to get crickets, gut load, and vitamin dust! Pet stores can be expensive and our closest one is 45 miles away though. Does anyone order stuff off of the internet? Would you share the sites with me?

I'll work on getting some pictures posted. I have a new digital camera I'm having a lot of fun with!

Is there any way to tell the sex of a salamander?

Sexing can be difficult. I believe Caudate Culture has an article about it?

As for the gutload and vitamins...I believe it's the general belief by everyone here that they aren't really required for salamanders. I don't think using them would be bad though, but to save some cash you could make up your own gutload (email me if you want any tips).

As for internet sites...hehe...I have one here in Canada that I run (www.canadianfeeders.com), but in the US there are tons of places. I'll leave it to some Americans to refer you to good sites for supplies, but if you're looking for a good place for the bugs I recommend reptilefood.com.

Dana,

I'm new here so I'm not quite sure if anyone's mentioned this or not but I've kept salamanders for over 15 years and in the winter, I sometimes feed them raw ground beef which they just love. Perhaps a change in diet is necessary, although most of the time, I stick with mealworms or earthworms. I've found spiders around the house that they'll eat as well--moths, even, in the summer. Good luck!