Help with my little T. shanjing morphs

Rachel:

Hi.Just wondering what you ended up using as a food mix for your shanjinglings.How often are you adding food to their enclosures?How many are in each one?

Did your request for phoenix larvae go through?

Still feeding fruit fly larvae? (a good choice I find).

Gord
 
Unless you actually see them eat, then you just have to wait and see if they remain robust and begin to grow. I don't have experience with shanjing, but for other newt morphs it may take a month or more until I'm certain that they aren't getting skinnier. I am currently playing this waiting game with my Paramesotriton caudopunctatus morphs.

(Message edited by jennewt on September 28, 2006)
 
jenn:

I have 3 caudopunctatus morphs at present..and thankfully I've seen them all eat. They really like fruit fly larvae. They never seem to get fat though, even after pigging out.

GE
 
I have seen them interested in the food, but they hide all day and so I feed them fresh ff larvae and blackworms every night, then throw in ff and pinheads when needed. I mist an area in the corner to keep it moist.

I am still working on the requests for the phoenix worms as they want me to amend all the herps diets, and the curator is away until Sunday. It takes way too long to do this. I am also breeding mealworms so I can occasionally use the very small ones and also looking into breeding wax worms.
 
Baby mealworms are an excellent idea, since you have those on hand. My experience with waxworms is that they are messy to breed and to grow. The baby waxworms eat a HUGE amount of medium, and they grow so quickly that they don't stay at a nice "usable" size for more than a few days. I have heard that lesser waxworms (a smaller species) are smaller and easier, but I've never tried them.
 
Hello All,

Just to let you know that over the past few days the newts have looked a little chubby around the middle and I actually saw a few of them coming out from under the moss later this afternoon after I threw in ff larvae and switched their light off.

The only concern is that the fruit flies are raised on ff medium, and although I rinse them, there are some pieces that I find difficult to separate. However I assume that the newts could probably deal with this okay as I suppose many of their food stuffs have other foods in their guts.

Anyway, they seem healthy enough.

Thanks for all your help guys. I hope that this is a good sign although I know that they are still small and they have a long way to go.
 
Rachel:

Just wondering how the shanjinglings are doing?
Have you changed how and what you're feeding them?

Gord
 
Actually, they are all still going. Some are still small but they seem healthy. Others are getting noticeably bigger, and one in particular will come out as soon as I offer food to eat. They really seem to love the fruit fly larvae. I still haven't got the phoenix worms approved but the babies seem to be doing well on the food offered to them. A colleague took a pic of two of them on my hand yesterday, so as soon as she emails to me I will post it here.

(It may not be clear but at least it will give an idea of the size ranges).

Thanks for your interest Gord.
 
Thanks for the update, Rachel. I was wondering about them too. It sounds like they've gotten going really well! Looking forward to a photo.
 
Hello all,

Here is a picture of one of the smallest and one of the larger morphs taken a few days ago by a colleague. Sorry it isn't very clear but it should give you an idea of size and colouration.

72242.jpg
 
Looking good Rachel...the fat one looks very nice. The small ones always are always the worry though, right?

Gord
 
awww those guys look awesome, I cant wait till I the day I get some
 
Hello,

I weighed the four groups of morphs and the eight smallest gained over 12% in weight in one week...

All 43 still look very healthy and active so I hope that this is a good sign.
 
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