Elektra Eating from a Spoon

[dawn]

While I was perusing old Caudata posts, I saw a picture of someone feeding their Dicamp. ensatus with a spoon. I thought that was the coolest thing! So I got some veal baby food and tried to feed my Tylo. verr. with this teeny tiny spoon I once got at Baskin-Robbins (a sample taste spoon). She ate a couple bites the other day, and today she did it again and I managed to take this photo! She is so cute I could just eat HER!....

 

[hunter]

That is awesome!

 

[emelie]

That's cool.. cute newt!

 

[jennifer]

Once you get it trained, it will probably take any kind of food that way. I'm not sure how good a food the veal is (vitamins and calcium are the concerns), but you could also use this method to feed it thawed frozen bloodworms, maybe even pellets.

 

[dawn]

That's a really good idea about the pellets; I was thinking how I could cut back on my weekly blackworm bill. I'm trying to get all my newts to eat more earthworms, freeze-dried tubifex, and if I can, even some pellets. I used to have one little Noto. vir. that I raised from a larva that would eat newt sticks from my fingers. Alas he got wounded and eventually died because of a huge leech that I didn't even know was in my tank, it came in tiny with the blackworms and eventually grew up. It was as big as the picture of the giant earthworm elsewhere on the forum. Tears were shed that day. Anyway, I only fed Elektra a bite of the veal here and there just to see if I could get her to do it, I was also not confident in the complete nutritional value of baby food but figured a bite here and there wouldn't hurt.
So that's a ramble but thanks for the idea!

 

[jennifer]

I agree, occasional feeding with the baby food won't hurt. Regarding pellets, I recommend the Rangen soft salmon pellets - they are sold by the AGSC axolotl colony and by Michael Shrom. I trust the nutritional content more than the ones sold in pet shops, and they must smell good because quite a few of my newts will actually eat them.

Regarding the leech, did you actually see it on the newt? I've always been told that the leeches in blackworms are parasites to the blackworms and don't bother fish or newts. I have seen some of them survive in an aquarium, but I assume they were feeding on the stray blackworms.

 

[dawn]

Hi Jennifer,
My eastern newts live in a tank with some guppies and have peacefully coexisted for a few years. Then suddenly one day Peewee has a circular wound and is missing a limb. Then another newt is missing two hands. Then another newt is missing a hand. All the newts missing hands had a strange circular mark on them. All in the space of three days. Then the next day I see this long huge black thing swimming wildly in my tank, I didn't know what it was, and it took me 5 minutes to catch! I took it to the petstore and he identified it as a leech. A couple days later I found another one. The pet store guy said they probably were living off the blackworms, but they just must have gotten so big they decided to go after the newts. What else could it have been? I'm sure it wasn't the guppies. I got rid of the leeches and that never happened again. So while I never actually saw the leeches on the newts, circumstantial evidence has convicted them in my eyes. I'm thinking the leeches latched on, and the newts struggled and maybe hauled out until the leech let go.
I put the damaged newts in a hospital tank for 3 months and they recovered, except for little Peewee, who was always a bit of a runt. What a black day that was when he succumbed.