Hi

[aivy06]

Hi,
I'm Amanda. First I want to say how extremely helpful this site has been! I recently got a salamander, but did not know a lot about how to take care of it. I learned a lot by just going through the forums, there were a lot of great ideas about how to set up habitats as well! My salamander's name is "Sharktail" and he is currently our class pet (the name was voted on). The kids absolutely love him and enjoy watching him, especially now that I have put him in an adequate habitat. He is a very picky eater, I have tried worms and crickets but he will not eat the worms. Any suggestions? I do not want the tub of worms to go to waste. Today the kids got really excited because he was actually out of his burrows (he has four or five). He's very cute and funny. The other day I was doing some work in my room, he was in the corner closest to me just watching me. I tested it by walking back and forth, sure enough his head followed me. Overall, I'm really glad I found this site because otherwise I do not think I would have known how to take care of him properly. He's much happier in his new, bigger habitat!

Unfortunately, I am having a problem getting the picture to upload from my computer, is there another way to post it?

Thanks!

 

[cheddarsox]

Sometimes worms that are sold as bait have a funny smell, and yellow stripes between the segments, and I've had some critters that refused to eat those "stinky" worms...but would happily eat night crawlers and native redworms.

I have been a science teacher, and have kept all manner of critters at home for many decades, something fun and useful to do is to keep a worm farm...the kids can recycle many food scraps while growing food for the salamander.

It is very easy to do. Get one of those rubbermaid storage totes, drill some holes in the sides, a few at the bottom, more at the top. Tear newspaper into strips enough to loosely fill the tub, then dampen the paper (they will reduce in volume when damp) don't make it too wet, if you squeeze them, no water should drip out. Then add several cups of outdoor dirt (roughage for the worms).

Add either wild redworms or nightcrawler, or purchased ones. You can feed them bread crusts, apple cores, any vegetable, non greasy food. Don't overdo it. The worms will breed in there!

I've kept such farms going for years. I even had one that had a resident marbled salamander in it.

As long as you don't overfeed, it should go great.

After awhile, the newspaper won't look like paper at all...it will have become soil. This soil can be added to potted plants or placed in a garden, and the whole thing started all over.

When this happens...push all the soil to one side of the container, and put new newspaper on the other side. Only place food on the fresh paper side. In a week or so, the worms will have migrated to the fresh side so you can harvest the compost.

I'll bet you can find info on line about this too.

It's a great class project, and saves $ on critter food too.

 

[aivy06]

Worms

Thanks, I'll have to try that. The kids are really excited because he's spending more and more time out in the open during the day! They also love to watch him eat, they ask me to feed him every day...I work with 3 and 4 year olds so they don't exactly grasp the concept that some things do not need to eat every day.