Taricha torosa eft journey

[clover]

Great updates! I look forward to the next time.

 

[dorm.room.biology]

He grew 2 cm (in the tail, but still) from yesterday. Incredible. It appears the question of whether or not torosa needs calcium on an earthworm diet has been answered.

 

[ctenosaura]

Just feed flightless fruit flies. You can get these at Petco and petsmart. When they get older then pinheaded crickets which may be harder to find.
My baby T. Sierrae is pounding down the fruitflys.

 

[clover]

Just feed flightless fruit flies. You can get these at Petco and petsmart. When they get older then pinheaded crickets which may be harder to find.
My baby T. Sierrae is pounding down the fruitflys.

You could also start a white worm culture or get black worms. They're much smaller than earthworms but not as good nutritionally. They love eating them at this age because they're alive and will have that satisfying wiggle until you teach them to eat dead food. They will grow much faster on these than they will on just fruit flies. Until mine got a little bigger I fed them on white and black worms and kept fruit flies in their enclosure for free range snacking. Your newt is very cute.

 

[dorm.room.biology]

Just feed flightless fruit flies. You can get these at Petco and petsmart. When they get older then pinheaded crickets which may be harder to find.
My baby T. Sierrae is pounding down the fruitflys.

Mine won't eat flightless fruit flies, on the rare occasions that he does try to eat them he usually misses and eats nearby dirt instead. He's big enough by now to eat most earthworms.

 

[ctenosaura]

Mine won't eat flightless fruit flies, on the rare occasions that he does try to eat them he usually misses and eats nearby dirt instead. He's big enough by now to eat most earthworms.

I keep my sierra newt on damp natural paper towels (no bleach / chemicals) in a semi large container with a lid. It allows me to see the flies and monitor how much he eats and craps and allows me to give it a 100% clean enclosure once or twice a week with a paper towel change. When he/she gets larger, I may move it to a more naturalistic aquarium. I don't have a source for worms.
This newt was pulled out of someone's swimming pool in Placer County by my pool guy and was told he left me another one now which ill see in a week when we go back to our place there.

 

[clover]

Oh wow thank you for rescuing him. Another supplemental food you could do if you don't have access to worms is frozen blood worms and just leave some in there on a paper towel at night. If you're planning to keep them permanently you can look into vermiculture. I'm doing it and I think dorm.room.biology is also doing it. I have European nightcrawlers and they're pretty easy to care for.

 

[dorm.room.biology]

I keep my sierra newt on damp natural paper towels (no bleach / chemicals) in a semi large container with a lid. It allows me to see the flies and monitor how much he eats and craps and allows me to give it a 100% clean enclosure once or twice a week with a paper towel change. When he/she gets larger, I may move it to a more naturalistic aquarium. I don't have a source for worms.
This newt was pulled out of someone's swimming pool in Placer County by my pool guy and was told he left me another one now which ill see in a week when we go back to our place there.

I have mine on some zoo med creatures soil with moss, springtails and small soil insects, and small earthworms. I set it up like this so that he could hunt his own food since the worms do explore around the enclosure pretty often at night, I figured it'd make a good emergency food supply if for some reason I was unavailable to feed him. Also he likes to hide under the moss more than any of the other three hides of varying sizes that I've tried to give him. Newts produce a surprising amount of waste, which I hope by now the moss and detritivores have grown to take care of but your setup does sound more hygenic.

Growing worms is very easy, you need a box of dirt with some optional drainage, worms, and any non-toxic compost material. I personally keep red wigglers since they're hardy and mostly edible size for amphibians. For gut-loading nutrition I use the uncle jim's worm farm food which is extremely cheap and complete, but they'll eat anything especially if you buy a starter soil sample that has other small soil animals. Most worms you can buy online come shipped in mature soil that seeds your setup with all the organisms required for a healthy soil ecosystem.

There are all sorts of other bells and whistles you can buy and many online vermiculture guides are oddly complicated for some reason, but a box of dirt and some food is literally all you need. It's tremendously convenient to have an infinite supply of pet food on hand, so I highly recommend it if you're interested. I do the bare minimum of maintenance on my vermiculture setup, often not opening it for days at a time, and have never had a problem with it.