Question: Feeding spotted sal - size of worm?

[JKoz]

Hey

I am having a hard time fining red earthworms for my spotted sal. It seems all anyone has is mealworms and nightcrawlers. :angry:

And not much in the yard except slugs.

The nightcrawlers are longer than her so I cut them in half which I keep hearing "worms cut in half" on the site and I figured these def need to be - which brings me to my question - what kind of size concerns are there for feeidng a spotted sal?

Thanks

JK

 

[Travisdjtg]

hi JKoz i think a good size for feeding worm bits is from one eye to the other. just estimate and cut the bits of earthworm to size with a razor and feed with a toothpick or small forceps. if she doesn't eat immediately a little bump on the nose might cause her to snap at it. generally you should be able to tell when shes had enough,her stomach will extend a little bigger but not TOO much until bloated. the same can be applied for feeding slugs to.

a spotted sally cant be fed nightcrawlers indefinitely though without some health deficiencies, there should some variety in food

 

[FRANCOIS]

hi JKoz i think a good size for feeding worm bits is from one eye to the other. just estimate and cut the bits of earthworm to size with a razor and feed with a toothpick or small forceps. if she doesn't eat immediately a little bump on the nose might cause her to snap at it. generally you should be able to tell when shes had enough,her stomach will extend a little bigger but not TOO much until bloated. the same can be applied for feeding slugs to.

a spotted sally cant be fed nightcrawlers indefinitely though without some health deficiencies, there should some variety in food

Not really! Nightcrawlers is one of the most complete food you can give them, they are rich in calcium especially, a spotted Sal could live very well only on such diet.

 

[Travisdjtg]

Not really! Nightcrawlers is one of the most complete food you can give them, they are rich in calcium especially, a spotted Sal could live very well only on such diet.

i agree they could live on such a diet of night-crawlers quite well.

just pointing out they have not completely adapted to a diet consisting of exclusively just one prey item.
:wacko:

 

[JKoz]

Thanks so much for the replies!!!!

I have been feeding her whole 'red' earthworms and now 1/2 nightcrawlers since I got her, and a whole slug or two for variety every now and then.

But that is a WHOLE lot bigger than the 'between the eyes thing' yeesh!

Especially the day she ate an entire nightcrawler (cut in half - two halves) in one sitting! I knew that was too much, so I just gave her half from then on.

She did seem happiest when I found little baby earthworms and gave her one of those a day or so for a week. If only the store sold baby worms...

She usually gets a little bloated, so that is bad, huh? Oops.

JK

 

[JKoz]

Okay, she looks really bloated today - can they eat too much????

 

[FRANCOIS]

Okay, she looks really bloated today - can they eat too much????

The between the eyes length / worm proportion is for juveniles... not to worry.
Go easy on the feeding for a while ;-) she is most likely full!!!!

 

[Jan]

Okay, she looks really bloated today - can they eat too much????

They can easily become obese. How old is the sal and how frequently are you feeding it?

 

[JKoz]

Thanks everyone for your posts, and thanks for your concern about the weight of my sal - She is the biggest spotted sal I have every seen so she has to be pretty old. I saved her from the road on in January, the dead middle of winter, almost two years ago. So I don't know how old she is , but she is about 10 cm - not stretched out - body only.

She has been through bad stuff in August - I had changed her substrate to moss and her tank got to warm, and on top of it all I am pretty sure she had bad worms. (they all died together within a week in the fridge)

Since then I fixed everything - no moss - but I had a hard time finding worms (not wanting to trust the 'tainted' worms - so I was digging them up in the yard, but she was only eating like once a week at the most)

Because of that, she got on the thin side.

So I have been trying to fatten her up, feeding her those tiny ones every day - that was a safe, good way to get some weight on her. No bloat.

But now all I have is the GIGANTIC nightcrawlers. So I fed her half a nightcrawler four times now in the last two weeks. She gets really bloated every time.

After the bloat goes down, she looks like she is a pretty good weight now.

The bloat scares me though - it is not extreme but it looks uncomfortable. She also ate a piece of a house-plant so I am worried about that.

Size of worm?

How often?

Will a plant kill her?



JK

 

[Jan]

An adult spotted can be fed 2 to 3 times a week if housed with ambient temps in the low 70sF; the lower the temps, the less food required. 1/2 of a 'gigantic' nightcrawler sounds fine. Substrate and other roughage is sometimes ingested when lunging for food; these things will generally just pass thru the intestine without issue unless it is a solid object like gravel. As for the 'bloating', its not uncommon for a sal's abdomen to appear rounder directly after feeding.

Relative to her weight, just keep an eye on it and adjust feeding amount accordingly.

 

[JKoz]

Thanks so much for yor reply - it answererd all my questions!

JK