Question: Feeding Meal-Worms to CFBN

[brainlady]

Ok, I am being a big girl about feeding Nibby live food. ( see early posts which addressed the whole ick thing). I have bought some live meal-worms to add some variety to his diet. I fed him a whole worm tonight and he ate it all... took about 5 mins to get the whole thing down. Now my anxiety starts....... was that too much, should I have cut it up? I cut one up but it didn't wiggle anymore and Nibs wouldn't even look at it. Nibby really responds to wiggly food and will just lunge at it and eat very heartily!!! Should I try to cut the head off, I read somewhere that Meal-worms have some sort of pincher things. I am trying to replicate what he would find in the wild.... a variety of yummy live worms. I give him black-worms, earthworms and now meal-worms. Just worried about his tummy being too full.
You can tell I am new at this......
oh, and I don't feed him every day..... every other day.

 

[Kaysie]

Mealworms aren't usually well-digested by salamanders. Additionally, they have powerful jaws that need to be crushed before feeding them.

Stick to squishy things, rather than crunchy things.

 

[Jennewt]

If you are already giving him blackworms and earthworms, I'd stick with those. I'm not a fan of mealworms.

 

[brainlady]

Thank you both!!!
I can do squishy.... not easy but I can do it, but the whole crunchy thing is different. If I cut the head off it doesn't wiggle so that won't work.
I will stick to the black-worms and earthworms I think. I added a lovely piece of driftwood to his tank today and a large shell.... he is now inside the shell! I am trying to create a really interesting and stimulating environment for him. I float three large ice-cubes made from his tank water each morning and 3 more when I get home and as soon as the California summer starts the air will be on all day. It has to be one for the dogs anyway and Nibby will indeed benefit from that.

 

[evut]

Hi, the shell is not a good idea - things like that alter the pH of water. I am not sure what type of shell it is but he might also get stuck inside.

 

[vistajpdf]

The casing on the mealworm isn't good for Nibby. The blackworms are excellent, as are earthworms. I've done a variety for mine of these worms, white worms and even frozen and thawed bloodworms when I didn't have live available.

Like you, I'm TERRIBLE about having to cut something up, but I can deal with throwing in a small of microworms!

Dana

 

[evut]

Dana, do you mean microworms, the 1-2mm whitish things? They were too tiny for my larvae, I can't imagine an adult newt even noticing them... ?