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Frozen blood worms?

Canecorsonewt

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Hi if you look up worms for newts on this site. It will say live blood worms are excellent food. But most people on this site say frozen/freeze dry is not good. Is there a basis to this or any proff to it? I understand losing some nutrition. If i was I'm not though a vegetarian and i only eat frozen vegetables. Would i get sick? Is it unhealthy? Is the vegetarian that eats fresh vegetables going to be more healthy? And has this been studied? I eat a lot of frozen and cand vegetables should i just eat chips or donuts instead is it just as healthy? I like fresh to we only have Walmart within 25 miles so nothing is fresh except the fruit flys.:frog:

I assume nobody has the real answers to that? Here's my question does anyone know a good mix? Frozen Blood worms live meal worms or frozen blood worms live wax worms? I will try more if anyone has a good mix. They will not eat night crawlers cut up from bait shop or red worms cut or hole from my pesticide free property. They have each tasted both and spit it out. I have left town for 5 days and came home to try and feed night crawlers with no success. I broke down and feed them some frozen blood worms. I have tried white worms witch i culture for my juveniles . Mom and dad show no interest haven't tasted them.
 

auntiejude

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Frozen food is OK, most people use frozen bloodworms for raising small newts or larvae, but freeze dried is pretty rubbish.
Ask yourself this - would you eat meat after is had been frozen? Yes, most people do. Would you eat freeze dried meat? Not unless it was the only choice and you were really really hungry.
I use a mixture of live and frozen food for raising larvae.
 

Chinadog

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Bloodworms, frozen or otherwise are very low in mineral content, particularly calcium for healthy bone growth. I do know that many newts will take them over almost anything else and it can be hard to wean them on to more healthy stuff if they've been eating only bloodworms for extended periods. For terrestrial animals the calcium and other vitamin supplements can easily be sprinkled onto their less than ideal food items to correct the mineral content, but with aquatic species it's obviously not so easy.
Diets based on earthworms have been tested successfully over many years because they have a calcium to phosphate ratio that's ideal for healthy growth. The easiest way to get reluctant newts onto worms for me is offering them just the last inch or so of a Canadian nightcrawler. I don't know why, but that part seems to be the most palatable, they will start taking whole worms and different species of worms after a while though. High quality amphibian pellets are just as good as worms, but I don't have much experience getting newts to take them.
Sure, there will be owners who insist their axolotl or newts are fine on frozen bloodworms, but without the calcium they need they will develop metabololic bone disease eventually, it's usually just not that easy to see in fully aquatic animals because their skeletons rarely neet to support their body weight on land.

Edit; To be clear, I didn't mean you should never feed bloodworms or any other frozen food, just that it shouldn't be relied on as a staple. I normally let my newts have defrosted bloodworms and brine shrimp about once a fortnight because they like them so much, but the rest of the time they get nightcrawlers or leafworms.
 
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AuSu

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My newts were all used to eat frozen blood worms, market fish food (mainly vegetables and colour...or vice versa...) and/or buffalo worms when i got them. They changed quite easily to eating Earth worms but I chose really small ones in the beginning since I didn't understand i could cut them and neither did know that they are able to eat quite large ones, too. But getting them to eat pellets has been awful! I can't believe their previous owners claim them eat whatever rubbish and when i offered "quality food" (Hikari) it took many months and they had to be really hungry. Now it's nearly a year and none of them would still choose a pellet if there are worms available. So what i try to say is be patient :) Keep on trying the variety and if you have the chance, try small worms and maybe from tweezers in front of their noses, that's worked for me.
 

JM29

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I think bloodworms are a very useful food for tiny caudates or larvae.
By the way, one must deal with some problems, especially when the animals grow :

- you won't actually give frozen bloodworms but de-frozen bloodworms. Exactly like meat, bloodworms lose some elements (perhaps a lot of minerals) during this process. These organic and mineral elements contribute to pollute small tanks.

- when the animal grow, they need more and more food. If they are given mostly frozen bloodworms, a part of it is not eaten and also contribute to water pollution.

- aquatic caudates usually find their food by sight, but also by smell. In a polluted water, their smell seem altered and they won't eat the bloodworms.

- and so on, until you change the water.
 

Niels D

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If you have some space it may be a good option to get yourself a compost heap or another compost system. This attracts all sorts of goodies for your newts. White worms, possibly different kinds of worms and springtails, which can be used if you've got terrestrial juveniles and such. Be careful with fly maggots though. Some can be harmful.
 

DanielsNewts

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Hello, this is my first post on the forum.I have 12 juvenile Chinese fire bellied newts, plus about another 15 in larvae stage and 5 adults. I have been feeding them daphnia, live and frozen blood worms and microworms. The adults will eat Pollywog pellets as well. I have been nervous about feeding them earthworms as I have heard that the ones with a yellow stripe are poisonous, is this the case? Daniel
 

Bellabelloo

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Hi Daniel.
The worms with the orange stripes produce a nasty smelling/tasting liquid to deter predators. Some newts will reject these. However my animals will eat them. I put the cut pieces of worm into a cup of cold water, then feed your animals from this. The worms are collected from the compost heap.
 

Blackbun

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For me, the fundamental advantage of feeding live food to young salamanders is that it moves. It gets the animal's attention and is particularly useful for shy feeders. Frozen food is convenient but I'd not substitute it for a dig in the garden for small wriggling worms.
 

DanielsNewts

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I have chopped some live earthworms up with a razor blade. I fed them to my juvenile newts and larvae. They ate them faster than the frozen bloodworm. Usually my new morphs take just over a week to start eating. Some of my juveniles only morphed yesterday and the chopped earthworms have tempted them to eat already. :happy:
 
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