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paddletails, fire salamanders and woodlice

peter81965

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I have access to literally tens of thousands of woodlice. Earthworms, on the other hand, are hard to come by in my neighbourhood. Can fire salamanders and/or paddletails eat live woodlice?
 

Abrahm

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Fire salamanders won't mind feeding on these guys. I've heard they are even a pretty decent source of nutrients. If you let some loose in the enclosure they will help with decomposing plants and animal waste (if they are the temperate kind) and the salamanders should munch on them. Combine with some regular feedings and I don't imagine you would have many problems.

I'm sure they would be fine to feed to a paddle-tail, there is only the basic problem of feeding terrestrial animals to an aquatic predator. Feeding them off of broom straws or some other utensil should help with that. Maybe they sink, I wouldn't know.
 

ajc

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Woodlice are good, but make sure you know where they've come from and have not picked up any harmful chemicals.
 

koala

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I also have a paddletail newt, and I find woodlice outside under logs, put them in a baggie in the freezer, then chop them up into little pieces and feed them to him. He loves them!
 

NightWolf

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Either my paddle-tailed newts are very picky, or the woodlice in my area just aren't tasty :rolleyes: They couldn't care less about them for some reason, however, I am sure if you offered one to your newt with a pair of tweezers they would eventually eat them. Just make sure that the woodlice who end up drowning are picked out of the tank so that mold cannot grow on them.
 

CherryBlossom

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aaah ok so i have a quick question (sorry to hijack your thread peter). I too have paddle tails... I get their meal worms and wax worms from a reptile shop here in dundee. The woman who owns the shop said that once the waxworms morph into the moths you can put the moths in the tank and the newts would eat them.... is this true?
 

Yahilles

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If you catch a moth with tweezers and give it to newt, newt will eat them. Don't expect them to catch free-flying moths ;)

And about woodlice. My Pachytriton liked woodlice very much (usually from tweezers, but i also put them at the bottom of the tank, so the newt hunted them down as they walked, searching for a place to hide.
 

deliriah

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I actually just started a woodlice tank. They seem to be doing well and my juvenile spotted sal loves them! He/she normally gets chopped nightcrawlers. I've even given some of the smaller ones to my eastern newts and they ate them too. But yes they float if you don't sink them down somehow.:p
 
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