Question: My newts won't eat!

[Lynzey]

thanks to everyone for the help about the sand question I previously posted, my fire-bellied's now have sand in the tank and seem a lot happier (they're moving around a lot more anyway and are acting more sociable) however, they aren't eating! I've read that newly homed newts can refuse to eat through stress etc and they don't necessarily eat the freeze dried food that is readily available.

What is the best thing to feed newts?

Please help, worried fire-bellied owner here!

 

[Kaysie]

Pretty much anything is better than freeze-dried food. Even if the animals did eat it (most won't), it's basically nutritionally void.

http://caudata.org/cc/articles/foods.shtml

http://caudata.org/cc/articles/foods2.shtml

http://caudata.org/cc/articles/worms.shtml

 

[Lynzey]

Thanks a lot for that post, i found it really helpful. I am pleased to report that I gave my fbn's a small amount of defrosted live bloodworms earlier today and saw one of them (Nigel) eat them immediately and when I came home they had all disappeared, which I can only presume means they ate them - yay!

I'm just wondering how often to feed them now, this is the first time they have eaten for a week, but I have just tread in another post that they should be fed 2-3 times a week, unless they have not eaten for a while....I'm slightly confused!

 

[Kaysie]

If they're starved (as in, nothing but skin and bone), they can suffer from something called refeeding syndrome. But if they look like they're of a somewhat healthy size, I would feed them a couple times a week.