Feeding questions...

[antoni]

Hello!!
I have some newts (7 cynops orientalis and 3 paramesotriton fuzonghensis) and i use to feed them with a "local" live worm (lumbricus terrestris) and frozen blood and white worms. Yesterday i saw in a pet store this:
http://www.zoomed.com/html/canos.php
Can you tell me what do you think about it?
Thank you very much!!

 

[jennifer]

I have tried the canned mini-crickets. All the newts that I offered them to refused to eat them. I have not tried the other varieties, but I'm curious if anyone has had any better experience with them. It seems like a good idea, nutritionally, but if animals will not eat them, then worthless.

 

[antoni]

Hy Jennifer, I´m going to try the canned snails and tell you what happens...

 

[adz]

hey can you feed firebellied newts extra lean ham?

 

[jennifer]

No, ham would not be a decent food for newts. It contains a lot more salt than a newt's natural foods do. Plus it contains preservatives that are bad for humans and may be even worse for amphibians. For better ideas, see:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/foods.shtml
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/worms.shtml

 

[david]

How much should I feed my warty newt? (Paramesotriton?) I read "every three days", but how big a meal? A big fat earthworm or grub, or a little skinny one? It's kind of warm in the terrarium and the newt is active, snapping at and eating earthworms, grubs, other insects, thin slices of fish. It's been fun trying different foods. He/she ate a fly the other day. I figured a big all-you-can-eat looking kind of worm is a week at least. I've had him 4 months now. Got him for $7 at a pet store.

Here's a photo of him on land, though he's usually in the water. Belly has orange spots.
http://home.comcast.net/~dfourer/ter/terrarium012.jpg

 

[jennifer]

David, your warty newt looks like a healthy weight. Like fish, the basic idea is to feed them as much as they seem to want at each feeding. Obesity is rarely a problem in caudates, but if the animal appears to be getting overly fat, you can cut back at that point. I wouldn't recommend feeding whole large worms - once they start on it, they are kind of "forced" to eat the whole thing, even if it's more than they really want. I tried whole big worms once with my warties, but it looked like an difficult task for them to eat a whole one, so I always chop them now.