Spitting out worms

[louise]

I have had my axie, Trisha, for about a month now. She seems happy in her tank and is feeding well on frozen bloodworms.

I have tried giving her very small earthworms, which I got from an amphibian supplier, but she spits them out as soon as she has grabbed them. She does the same with maggots, and refuses pellets altogether.

Any ideas why she is doing this, as the food is in no way too big for her? What can I do to get her onto pellets, or at least vary her diet a bit?

 

[kapo]

Our adults won't eat frozen bloodworm or pellets, mainly earthworms, live bloodworm and very occasional oxheart. You could also try live tubifex or live bloodworm if you're able to get them.

 

[ian]

They can just take time to adjust to new foods. My axies did that with earthworms at first but I cut them up into smaller pieces and slowly increased them up in size to full small-medium earthworms and there's no regurgitation now. With axie pellets only one axie would eat them at first but now after a month of feeding these they all eat them! Some worms may taste sour to the axies too, plus I'm sure they have their own fave foods like we do!

 

[alex]

try some food that is very "smelly"
something with a really pungent smell, or something which forms a "slick" in the water. as one of the axolotls main senses is smell, this can oftern induce them to give it a go.

 

[jennifer]

A well-fed animal will sometimes refuse a new food, prefering what they are familiar with. But if you let them get good and hungry, suddenly they are much more willing to try new food!

One reason for the rejection of the earthworms could be the type of worms. Most commercially available small worms are redworms (also called tiger worms, red wigglers, etc). These worms are often rejected due to a strong smell they have (if you cut one in half, you can smell it). Also, they are sometimes raised commercially in manure, which probably doesn't improve their taste any. Some sals do learn to accept them, but some never do.

 

[shelly]

i starved fraggle for a few days and then offered him some turtle sticks which he had previously refused. now he will eat them quite happily. it did him good as i think he was getting a bit tubby lol

 

[louise]

Thanks. The worms are earthworms, bred by an amphibian supplier for feeding amphibs. They are of a small size. I'll maybe try her again with them in a few days.

 

[jennifer]

Any worms that are bred or propagated are redworms, with 100% certainty. It's certainly worth trying again, as they are an excellent food source for any sal that will accept the taste.