Question: Eating, proving to be a difficult task, help!

[experience99]

Hey everyone,
I was looking for some advice. I have 3 FBN and they don't seem to be eating. I saw one of them eat a waxworm once. We put bloodworms in there and they didn't touch them. I even left them in there overnight and I just checked on them in the morning to find furry bloodworms. Do I feed them in the tank or out of the tank? They have a large 55gal, half rock/land, half water. I am going to go tomorrow to pick up some earthworms and see if I have better luck with them. I don't want them to starve to death, especially because these 3 were in super good health from a reptile expo. I just need someone to point in the right direction with this.

Thanks!

 

[evut]

How long have you had these newts? It sounds like they are aquatic (?) in which case they don't need the land section of the tank, just a small island of some sort.

Regarding feeding - if you've only just bought them, they might take a while getting used to their new home. How are you feeding them? Did you offer the waxworms with tweezers? The newts might want the food to move so just dropping stuff might not work. If you try waxworms again, pierce their skin several times to make sure the newts can digest them.

You can feed them in the tank but make sure no leftover food is left in the water for too long. Some people take their newts out for feeding into a separate container but I think that it's quite stressful for the animals (it works for some people).

With bloodworms, you could also try using tweezers to offer them. I have seen many times that if you get a newt who's never had bloodworms to try them from tweezers (I suppose that makes them look alive), then they will happily pick them up from the bottom of the tank. They have a strong smell and newts seem to love that. As you've noticed, they shouldn't be left in the tank uneaten for more than a couple of hours. See if you can get live bloodworms as well.

Earthworms are probably the best food for newts so hopefully they will accept them. Do you know which kind you're getting? Eisenia species (I think that's the same as red wigglers) have distasteful secretions - if you chop them, try soaking them in water for a while before feeding them. Smaller whole worms might be ok. My newts seem to prefer nightcrawlers, which obviously need to be chopped and sometimes cleaned as well because they produce some sort of a slime. You can get worms from your garden or a park if the area is chemical free.

Generally, see if offering live moving food items works. Don't stress the newts with attempts to feed them too often - try once or twice a day. If they don't show interest immediately, don't chase them around the tank with the food but try later or the next day.
There are some articles about food here. You could also post some pictures of the animals and their tank here.
Hopefully they will start eating soon. Good luck!

 

[ACEPHONECHIC]

Hi I find my alpine newts which are totally aquatic like to forage around for food very small earthworms are good but they do have to be tiny.
Also as it is mild there is alot of water flea and mosquito larva around and they like those. I dip from my pond but a tub in the garden collecting rainwater often produces the mosquito larva after a couple of days.
movement is the stimulant with them they do not take notice of non moving food.

 

[experience99]

I have had the newts for almost two weeks now on this Sunday. We had a batch from the pet store that ended up dying and figured we would fare better with newts from the reptile expo since they aren't mass imported.

I was putting the waxworms on the little land area and hoping they'd find it when they came to hide out underneath the little hut up there, but I only had luck with one guy (and I put it right in front of his face). And since it's a 55 gal it's kind of hard to get down the entire way and feed them in the water.

I bought earthworms today at the pet store and cut it into parts small enough to eat. One of the newts ate a little bit of him but the other guys don't seem to be interested. I'm going to try again tonight hoping they aren't hiding under the rocks.

I was thinking taking them out and putting them in a small container would be easier for me since the tank is so large (and my tweezers don't grasp the worms as well as I'd like), but I definitely don't want to stress them out more.

Thanks everyone.

 

[nwmnnaturalist]

Waxworms are often very difficult to digest and not very nutritious, so it's best just to stay away from those. Sometimes you just have to give them opportunities to be a little adventurous and interact with live prey, to stimulate their appetite. When first feeding my A. tigrinum after I rescued her, I got her to eat by gently moving a live worm up against her jaws and chin. Eventually the squirming worm got her attention and she ate it. It takes quite a bit of patience, but one of the lucky things about amphibians is their cold-blooded nature makes it easier to be patient.

 

[Ed]

Waxworms are often very difficult to digest and not very nutritious, so it's best just to stay away from those. .

While it is true that the exterior skin is difficult to digest, this doesn't mean that the contents aren't broken down and absorbed. There are multiple openings that allow access for this to occur (spiracles, mouth, anus). It is true that people often make larger holes for easier digestion and uptake, an argument could be made as to whether this was required or not.

With respect to nutrition.. this can also be argued, it is true that they are high in fat (46% on a dry matter basis), they also contain a decent amount of crude protien (42%) which is comparable to a number of other invertebrates fed to the newts such as blackworms (48%), bloodworms (52%), tubifex worms (46%) and mosquito larva (42%).

Ed

 

[Ed]

Hey everyone,
I was looking for some advice. I have 3 FBN and they don't seem to be eating. I saw one of them eat a waxworm once. We put bloodworms in there and they didn't touch them. I even left them in there overnight and I just checked on them in the morning to find furry bloodworms. Do I feed them in the tank or out of the tank? They have a large 55gal, half rock/land, half water. I am going to go tomorrow to pick up some earthworms and see if I have better luck with them. I don't want them to starve to death, especially because these 3 were in super good health from a reptile expo. I just need someone to point in the right direction with this.

Thanks!

There are a number of things that cause a newt to not feed, the first and the easiest to check are those that are enviromental in nature.
What is the temperature of the water?
Are you monitoring water quality? What is the pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate?

If all of those numbers are within an acceptable range, you can try live foods just to get them feeding. Often better pet stores sell live blackworms and/or live brine shrimp. These can often be used to kickstart stressed animals. Both should be rinsed with clean water before offering them as a food source and both should be kept in the refrigerator. The blackworms will need daily water changes to keep them from dying and fouling thier own water.

Some comments,

Ed

 

[eminem]

if your going to feed them earth worms i would suggest chopping them up and feeding them with tweezers. today i noticed mine were skinny because now that its winter i only have pellets so ive been feeding them small chunks of beef. ive had mine for maybe 7 years? and just started doing the tweezers today and it worked hastle free