Best, cheap food for tiger salamander?

[Ronathan]

Hi! I'm getting my first amphibious pet soon, which is a tiger salamander. I have everything i need, including the tank, hiding place, decor, water dish, and moss substrate. All i need is the food and the actual salamander. I was wondering, what is the best food that is still cheap and accessible? I live right next to a petsmart, which has crickets, of course, but crickets are hard to keep. I don't know where to get live mealworms, which are apparently easier to take care of. Could i get him freeze-dried mealworms or crickets for him to eat? Thank you for reading and helping!

 

[sde]

You should really feed him earthworms/night crawlers, even if they aren't the easiest to find. However, I know that some petshops sell them, Walmart does ( maybe not all locations though? ), and of course bait shops.
If you haven't seen these already, take a look at these care sheets written by experts.

Caudata Culture Species Entry - Tiger salamander
Caudata Culture Articles - Tiger Salamander 101
-Seth

 

[gregory741]

Earth worm's are the one of the easiest salamander food to get and one of the best nutritionally

you could get live meal worms from almost any pet store
(I don't know if they would eat freeze dried crickets or meal worm's)

 

[Cliygh and Mia]

Also, meal-worms are not a good staple, they are hard to digest for animals, Earthworms if you don't use pesticides or herbicides, are free if you collect them outside, but I could also imagine that dubia roaches would be a good staple, if gut loaded, and dusted with the proper calcium supplement, but when feeding insects that can bite back, like crickets and roaches, be sure to either make sure it eats all of the food when you feed it, or use tweezers when feeding it, they can get hurt from being bitten by those bugs

 

[Cliygh and Mia]

Also take a look at this link
Caudata Culture Articles - Food Items for Captive Caudates

 

[Ronathan]

Thanks you guys a bunch! I will feed him earthworms, probably with the occasional nightcrawler or cricket as a treat. This helped a LOT! I live in Las vegas, so its hard to find bugs for animals. Thanks again!