Question: Rescued newt just laid

lestat

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Last week I was given a newt. They were keeping the poor thing in a little deli cup for several days and were feeding her fish food. I'm still pretty new to newts (although I have a lot of experience with frogs and reptiles) but she looked a bit thin to me (hip bones showing = thin?) and wasn't eating very well. I went and got her some worms and as soon as she saw them she changed from a listless little newt into a ferocious miniature alligator, complete with a few death rolls as she attacked the worms.

I think I've properly IDed her as a Chinese Fire Belly Newt. I'm also rather proud to say I properly sexed her as a female, even before she laid eggs. ;) Tonight when I was cleaning her water, I found a bunch of eggs throughout the plants. I don't know if she's been housed with other newts. These guys are different from the other herps I keep, so I have a few questions.

1. Should there be a little more 'padding' around her hips? She looks a little thin to me.

2. Do newts breed like frogs? (ie, external fertilization, so the male must be present when eggs are laid for them to be fertile) Or more like geckos? (ie, internal, so these eggs may be fertile)

3. This question only applies if they're internally fertilized, since all the eggs have dark centers. I was told that dark centers means they're fertile, and white means they're infertile. Is that true?

Here are a few pictures of her. I'm open to any advice or suggestions. Please keep in mind that I have only had her a few days and she is a rescue. I'm trying to do the best I can for her under the circumstances. I'm just a little wary of posting about rescues, since I've been flamed on different sites when people didn't read and assumed a rescue animal's poor conditions were my fault. :eek:

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Moved to the Newt help section since these are basic questions.
 
That newt looks fat and happy to me. Sounds like it too considering she ate, she's in the water and laying eggs, whatever you're doing I would say you're doing well!

Lets see what others have to say.
 
She looks healthy, though for a gravid female she is not the fattest she could be. Try to feed her a little more, specially while she is laying cause it will take a lot of energy.
They have internal fecundation, so if there was fecundation once, she can lay fertile eggs for a long time. She can go for months without being fertilized again.
 
Sorry about that, Daniel. I realized it was the wrong section right after I'd already hit the "submit" button.

I'm glad she looks healthy. I figured laying eggs was a good sign, but I don't want to make assumptions about a species I'm not familiar with yet. I've been raising some Cynops pyrrhogaster larvae that I got from Jennewt, so at least I'm not unprepared for eggs. Just a little surprised.

Right now her main food is blood worms. Since they're live, they don't contaminate the water as quickly as the fish food was, so I'm giving her more than enough and she has food at all times. The care sheet here has a list of things they can eat, but only a couple of them actually live in the water. Are there other things I can add to her diet that live in the water? I clean her water every night when I'm taking care of the other newt larvae and my baby geckos, so it won't be there long if her food dies in the water, but I'd like to keep it as clean as I can since I don't have a very large tank for her yet.
 
You can try any living food that is adequate for aquatic newts (maybe you have a look at the feeding recommendations for Axolotls), for instance white worm (Enchytraea), Daphnia, mosquito larvae, small sweetwater shrimp, tiny earthworms and so on.
 
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