Tiger salamanders.

[Bellabelloo]

Early October I received a couple of tigers from Penthea (Mark) . I am really enjoying these two. I tend to feed them last as they are so interactive. They rather gleefully devour earthworm. I'm hoping in the new year I will be putting my two oldest sons to work and will build them a nice big out door enclosure. I am also hoping to add a couple of females to their enclosure.

 

[herbaltree]

lovely!
My tiger doesn't seem to understand earthworms...he just tends to play with them instead of trying to eat them!

 

[AnnaBeth]

This thread has pretty much sold me on Tigers. They are so personable. I thought my corn snake had the face of a lover until I saw your Tigers.

 

[Bellabelloo]

Last week I received a couple more, hopefully females. I really need now to get on with their new outdoor home.

 

[grius]

Looking good! I hope it turns out that you are right about they being females.

Question. What do you use as substrate?

 

[Bellabelloo]

Thank you Tomas. I use a mix of coco fibre and garden soil. If I just use the garden soil it gets compacted very easily.

 

[Jan]

Julia - are you going to take a shot at breeding them....outdoor enclosure? If so, best of luck!

 

[grius]

Okey. I have tried to find a good soil long time now and it is impossible to find in sweden. But I will keep looking. Now back to the thread subject

 

[Bellabelloo]

I will give it a try Jan.

 

[Jan]

I will give it a try Jan.

Great and do keep us posted on progress!

 

[Bellabelloo]

Unfortunately both the females died. The first I found dead half inside her tunnel. She had fed the day before and behaved normally. The second died a week later. I fed her in the morning, she came out like a rocket for food, ate a couple of worms and then wandered back to her hide. I returned lunch time and she was lying on the surface barely breathing. I brought indoors and placed her on barely damp paper towel and left her, and hour later she was dead. There was nothing visibly wrong, she looked perfect. I have contacted the sellers regarding this in case there may be a problem with the batch . These where sold as raised from wild-collected larvae, I wonder if maybe the stress of being sent may have been too much for them. I keep my earthworms in a wormery and all my other animals are fed the same, so I am pretty sure that they where not the problem.
So once again I am looking for some more female Eastern tigers.

 

[Jan]

Julia,,,,,so very sorry to hear that :-(

 

[Niels D]

That's bad news indeed. They were so beautiful. Sorry for your loss!

 

[Bellabelloo]

Yesterday I found both my males dead. I have absolutely no idea why, both where fine the previous evening.
I had put them in a different tank after I lost the others, replaced all their soil and hides . I also added a minimum and maximum thermometer so I could monitor the temperatures, the readings had all been good.

 

[evut]

That's terrible, Julia. I am so sorry to hear that.

 

[Cliff]

Oh dear, that is terrible! So sorry for your loss you must be devistated

 

[Wayne the pain]

So sorry for your loss, what a shame.

 

[TylototritonGuy]

Julia I really feel for you, I hope that they can find out what happened or what was the cause of the deaths to try and give you some peace of mind!

 

[Jan]

Julia - did you ever receive feedback from the sellers of your females? It seems they died within 5-6 weeks after they arrived.

Did your males and females share the same enclosure? Your males seemed to be doing fine for 6 months and then it appears that 2 weeks after your females died, your males died. If I were to hazard a guess - I would wonder about pathogens and the females transmitting an infection to your males....unless something dramatically changed in their environment/setup.

Sorry for you loss.

 

[Bellabelloo]

I did get a response from the seller, basically without a necropsy there was no way of finding out what happened. He did say that the other buyers of tigers from the same back had not contacted him with any problems. He did offer to pick me up some more, but I chose not to as I have lost faith in the seller.
The males and females where in different enclosures and did not share anything. But rather stupidly, when I found the first female dead, I put the remaining female in with the males. I deeply regret having done that now. I do suspect some kind of infection is what killed them as it seems too much of a coincidence. When the second female died, I removed the males and put them in a completely new tank...but that may have been too late. I am pretty sure it wasn't down to contaminated food as I feed all my animals from the same source.