Axolotl’s haven’t eaten in 2 weeks

[Day]

As you see in the title, my Axolotl’s haven’t eaten in 2 weeks. I’ve had my Axolotl’s for 6 years and have fed them nothing but night crawlers and I buy them from a bait shop. I’ve never had a problem with buying from there until I brought a container home one time and they were all moldy. I wasn’t able to go back to the store because of the snowstorm so I had to improvise. I looked up “what do Axolotl’s eat” and one options was raw chicken. So I cut up tiny pieces of chicken, rinsed it off and fed it to them. They both ate them, no problem. But since then they have not eaten the new worms I’ve gotten them, haven’t even showed interest. They won’t eat anything I give them. One of them is getting so skinny and I fear that she’ll die soon. I tried to feed my other one yesterday and she ate the worm perfectly fine, but threw it up this morning. What do I do?

update: i just fed the other one again who threw up her food from this morning. She’s not as hesitant to eat her food like she was last night so hopefully her food stays down today.

 

[michael]

It is tough to diagnose what is going on. Bad earthworms could have caused digestive problems. Raw chicken can carry salmonella that also caused problems for reptiles and amphibians. I mostly feed them healthy earthworms or salmon pellets.
For treatment for gram positive and gram negative bacteria and fungus I use furan 2. That can be found at most big tropical fish stores or purchased on line. If they are not to far gone medicating with furan 2 would be a good place to start. It is a major medicine that is good treatment for most infections an axolotl would get.

After they come around I recommend adding cichlid pellets or salmon pellets to your axolotl diet. Then you will have a fall back food if you have problems getting good worms. The bad weather and slow shipping has caused problems getting live foods for many suppliers, stores, and hobbyists.