Do morphed firebellies still feed on live swimming food

[bichogrilo]

My firebellies just morphed and am unsure whether the mosquito larvae and other swimming food i have been using will still be good,or do i need to feed something different.

 

[OZIRIS]

Hello,

You will need terrestrial food items: earthworms,pinhead crickets, fruitflies, etc or you need to feed them with frozen food and tweezers one by one.

Some people leave bloodworms in a wet paper towel on land and newts eat them. I mix both methods to check that all are eating properly.

Regards

 

[evut]

Mine were fed lesser wax worms and woodlice by the breeder before we got them and we continued with those but mainly with chopped earthworms. It's the newt super food and it's free if you have a chemically untreated garden.
You might also be able to buy a lesser wax worm culture - they are very nutritious and the newts loved them. They also accepted defrosted bloodworms but we had to hand feed these first (on a toothpick). Later we were able to feed them from a jar lid lined with a piece of kitchen roll.

 

[bichogrilo]

Thanks for the info, plenty of worms here i expect my compost worms will be fine. Have always kept reptiles before this, but saw these advertised as eggs and thought they would be cool. they havnt been around in New Zealand for long and are still the only salamander breed legally allowed in the country, so cost too much even for eggs. but apparently very easy to breed.

 

[Azhael]

They are indeed very easy to breed, but not to raise. Morphs are tiny and shy...they are certainly not easy when compared to other species.

You can easily train morphs to accept food from tweezers which allows you to feed dead foods.

 

[bichogrilo]

so how do you train them to eat from tweasers? i am prob just being paranoid but just want to see them eat something in morphed state to know they are not going to slowly starve to death. You would not believe the range of small invertebrates now crawling around on the island and even over the top of the newts, with not even a hint of interestfrom the newt.

 

[Azhael]

Over saturation with food possibilities is counter-productive. It causes stress which in return affects their appetite to the point of refusing to eat.
To train them to eat from the tweezers you just need loooots of patience. The only way to succeed is to repeat until they get the message (some get to it almost inmediately, others take weeks). Once they associate the tweezers with food they´ll eat almost anything offered with them.

 

[spoons]

i had massive difficulty raising the morphs , and as detailed above they are very shy and refused to eat , i've unfortunately to date , never managed to get them past two years before they just stop eating altogether and starve to death

 

[Crysta]

Lots of good advice here, nothing really I can add, except to re-enforce (i think is the word) varied methods of feeding, live foods for them is usualy best, but not TOO many!.
most people I think like to use bloodworms.

If you can 'tweezer feed' them it's very very satisfying experiance.

__

that is very unfortunate and must not be very nice for you. but you must keep at it and not give up.
defiantly reccomend trying to train them onto tweezers.

 

[tmarmoratus]

I've had success feeding chopped blackworm and chopped tubifex worm to newly morphed C.e. popei and T. marmoratus.