are Earthworms a good main diet for an axolotl?

[bitenomnom]

I know that at the Walmart here, nightcrawlers are sold for something like 20/$3! Not bad. You get some variation in size though, but most of them are huge! I think you can pay a dollar more and get 30 worms, too. But my axies are small yet, only 3-4", and can't even swallow half of some of those worms! So I just got 20 to start with.
Anyway, I know Walmart had been suggested before but I figured I'd chime in.

 

[Markw]

You can chop them up and your axies will love them!

Mark

 

[Jennewt]

I know that at the Walmart here, nightcrawlers are sold for something like 20/$3! Not bad. You get some variation in size though, but most of them are huge! I think you can pay a dollar more and get 30 worms, too. But my axies are small yet, only 3-4", and can't even swallow half of some of those worms! So I just got 20 to start with.
Anyway, I know Walmart had been suggested before but I figured I'd chime in.

Amanda - this is the article you need:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/worms2.shtml

 

[Markw]

Id be weary about wooden toothpicks (or any, really, with a sharp tip). If your animal gets a little greedy, you could have yourself in quite a mess.

Mark

 

[scrappa]

Hi all,

LOL!

I just fed my axolotl who is about 4inches long called miniziller an earthworm and he/she ate it then it was still alive and crawled out of stomach and tryed to escape and got eaten over and over the epic struggle between lotl and eaten worm is still going on!

I missed the oppurtunity to get a pic of it

It was my lotls first earthworm.

 

[bitenomnom]

Amanda - this is the article you need:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/worms2.shtml

Ah! Yes, of course I've been chopping them up. I just meant to say that there were some huge worms in the container I bought. Heh, although I do remember reading that article a while back, before I got my axolotls.
I've come a long way from my childhood, when I realized in horror that fishing usually meant stabbing a worm onto a hook. They were my "little friends" and I wouldn't let my grandpa do that to them!
And now here I am, slicing them up to fit in my cute little axies' mouths. I think it's funny that one of my lotls gulps them up straight away, but the other seems to think about it first. Sometimes it takes him a minute to decide to eat the worm bit dangling in front of him. (Maybe he's just slow and doesn't realize it's food, haha.)

 

[Markw]

I was wondering what temperature these guys should be kept at. Here, its staying in the 90s. When you buy them from the bait shop, you keep them in the fridge, but the way I figure it, the top layers of soil cant be too much cooler than the ambient temperature that is in the 90s. I was going to set up a 30gal bin (or larger, I have to check it.) and put worms in it that I caught from the yard, feed them right for a while, then give them to the axies. All the while putting whatever worms I find in the yard in the bin to replenish my 'stash'. So anyways, would it be okay to just put the bin on the porch in the shade? Ive read from places that you have to dig it into the ground and put the whole bin in the ground. Any help with this would be great.

Mark