young morphing newt not eating! :(

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superradjenn

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Ive had 2 baby newts prior to this trying to raise them to be adults but i cant seem to get them past this stage. I make sure there is land for them to go on, knowing that they are teresstial at this point but they have always stopped eating and wont eat anymore. i dont understand.
i've kept everything the same but a little less water so its more land, thats it.

i've always given him live black worms since he was a baby and he's loved them. its been 3 days and he's getting skinnier and im afraid he is going to keep starving himself like the rest of them have.
side note. he barely goes in the water, he's always climbing on the side of walls and whatnot.

please help! i want him to get to be an adult so he can see the rest of his family. :)

what should i do?!

p.s. forgot to add that its a chinese fir-belly newt, sorry! :p
 
Put him on damp paper towel substrate in a ventilated plastic box with some moss to hide in. Try putting in some live bloodworm or pinhead crickets.
 
If he barely goes in the water and is climbing the sides, I'd go with a fully terrestrial setup. Once they are on land it's not easy to get them to eat blackworms. I'd recommend fruit flies or pinhead crickets.

This might help:
http://www.caudata.org/people/JM/Cp_juv.html
 
thanks so much guys. stupid question though...

where would i get moss?
or pinhead crickets? or fruit-flies?

honestly ive been to a couple pet stores and even some aquatic stores and iver never seen crickets small enough for a baby newt to eat...

hope he makes it through! :)
 
Do you have any fairly large pet stores that cater towards reptiles? These would be the most likely to have pinhead crickets. Wingless fruit flies are easy to grow your own, but you'd have to order a starter culture and medium online. Whiteworms are easy to grow your own, but again you'd have to order a starter. It's also possible to hatch your own pinheads starting from adult crickets - I find this difficult, but some people do this routinely.

Beyond that, you can try to teach them to hand-feed from a toothpick. You may be able to start by offering them blackworms from a tweezers or eyedropper.

Almost any pet shop should have dry moss that they sell for reptiles. (Wet it, don't use it dry.) Avoid sphagnum moss. You can also use plastic or silk plants if you prefer.
 
superradjenn - Please follow our rules and use proper English (like Capital letters).
 
My newts have morphed but stay in the water most of the time too, and one suddenly stopped eating. I honestly don't know why. He just went straight off bloodworms (frozen) and earthworms which he loved before.
 
Honestly, the only way is to force feed them. Just be careful because you can do some damage to their mouth area and maybe break their jaw.

When I got the fruitflies, he didn't eat still. So I am assuming he's sick from not eating. And instead of waiting and hoping, I decided I am going to force feed him. At least I know he's eating now which is all that matters at this point.

Take a toothpick and put the food on the tip. Find the line of his mouth and be gentle opening it.
Its better to go from the side of his mouth then the front of his mouth. When you hold him, hold him making sure that his hands arent out, that way he cant keep squirming. Dont press/ squeeze him to hard. Be very very gentle.

Make sure whatever you give him isnt live, obviously, because it won't stay on the toothpick very well.

Let me know how that works for you :)

p.s. over-time he will eat on his own, just be patient :)
 
I can get it in his mouth but he just won't eat it. He spits it out and tries his hardest to get away from the worm. I tried my hardest to get it right in but he just completely refused to swallow it. (I had to use a bent paperclip because all the toothpicks are gone) :(
 
ShauNewt said:
I can get it in his mouth but he just won't eat it. He spits it out and tries his hardest to get away from the worm. I tried my hardest to get it right in but he just completely refused to swallow it. (I had to use a bent paperclip because all the toothpicks are gone) :(
Click to expand...
ShauNewt stop what you're doing. Wait for some more advice - force feeding is the last thing you should resort to. It's always good to get a second opinion before following advice here, particularly from a user who is as new as yourself here (no offense to anyone).
 
Don't worry, I saw that it wasn't working and left it ages ago. He's in his tank acting same as normal. I'm just going to let him eat when he wants, but there's no way i'm going to let him starve to death. If there are any good ideas, please tell me them. Cheers, Shaun

EDIT: Oh yeah, it wasn't offensive btw, and I had an account a couple of years ago which I forgot the password to (lol) so i'm not as new as you think :)
 
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ShauNewt, you really should try various live foods before resorting to force feeding. If pet shop food is unavailable, you can try worms, slugs or bugs from outdoors.
 
Well i've done plenty of research and even went to newt specialists as crazy as it sounds.

I've even had a newt that was injured at one side of his mouth and refused to eat til he got better and so force feeding was the only option that would work. I don't go by just one person's opinion, I went by a few animal clinics focusing on amphibians, salamanders, and reptiles, etc.
He's been healed back to health and has been living for 4 years so far.
I just never had an bad experience with force feeding whatsoever.

But I was going to say that I would never use a paperclip.
Mainly because newts are sensitive to certain things and the metal in paperclips are what they coat it with, I just wouldn't trust.

I maybe new to the forum but not new to newts in general
and I'm saying that in the nicest way possible :)
Since I know how things can be taken the wrong way on the interet all the time.
 
His staple food are earthworms from the garden which he stopped eating, but he's eating bloodworms in jelly now. Hopefully he'll get back onto worms as well. I'm just glad he's eating again.
 
superradjenn said:
Well i've done plenty of research and even went to newt specialists as crazy as it sounds.
Click to expand...


Could you give a name and location? This is interesting information that others may want to tap into.
 
Kaysie said:
Could you give a name and location? This is interesting information that others may want to tap into.
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to do some digging because all of that are in boxes somewhere.
I just moved like a week ago.
There is one I remember a little bit and it was in Roseville, Mi.

He was the one that gave me something sensitive enough to heal one of my newts open sore on his mouth and to talk to me about the best way for him to eat without getting his sore infected...

I'll get back to everyone when I find it. Although most of them are in Michigan, so hopefully it'll help some of you out! :)
 
I would have thought that an open sore on the newt's mouth might have been an indication as to why it wasn't eating.

Trying to force feed an animal with such a sore doesn't sound like a smart idea to me.
 
If it was a big sore then no wonder yours wasn't eating. Mine just moved tank so I think that's why mine wasn't eating.
 
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